Three critical Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) projects of the University of Technology and Applied Sciences (UTAS), Navrongo, in the Upper East Region have been stalled for the past 10 years affecting academic work.
These include a 4-storey hostel facility for students, 4-storey laboratory complex, a lecture hall / office complex, a situation which is making it difficult to admit more students into the university.
THE Vice Chancellor of UTAS, Professor Albert Luguterah, who disclosed these to The Ghanaian Times in an exclusive interview on Friday, blamed the issue on successive governments and contractors for the lukewarm attitude in getting the projects executed on scheduled.
Prof. Luguterah said he was following up on the “needless delays” in getting these major GETFund projects executed with the expedition it deserved to bring to an end the continued ‘hullabaloo’ of limited infrastructure constraining the successful running of the university.
Describing the situation as “highly devastating,” he pointed out that the phenomenon had made the school, also referred to as C.K Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS) underutilised, compelling management to turn down a lot of applications from prospective students in every academic year.
Additionally, he mentioned that the construction of a 4-storey hostel facility for students had been stalled along the line, forcing scores of students to trek miles from their private residence to access lectures, each day.
He disclosed that the hostel project, awarded to the Koddeg Ghana Limited on March 3, 2024, was scheduled to be completed on August 31, 2025.
According to him, the estimated GH¢4.28 million project was only 10 per cent complete with the contractor abandoning the site after all efforts to secure the needed funds to continue the project proved futile.
Also, the construction of a 4-storey Laboratory Complex, awarded to the Sunlu Ghana Ltd on November 11, 2016, Prof. Luguterah emphasised, had hit the rock, with the contractor demanding a revision of the contract and revaluation of the contract sum which is currently GH¢21, 499,577.33.
“You see, it is sad that you award contract to a contractor which is just some meagre four or five or so millions of Ghana Cedis, and because of the unnecessary delays, it balloons.
“So, despite all that the contractors have done, the amount of money they need to finish the project is far more than the cost of the entire project, and it is just sometimes painful how we just watch how Ghana’s money is wasted,” he fumed.
Moreover, he mentioned other impeded contracts, such as a 4-storey lecture hall and office block which was awarded on contract on November 14, 2014, and was scheduled for completion on November 11, 2016, with an initial contract sum of GH¢3, 979,086.51.
He said the inner roads of the university were in a very deplorable state, an issue he stated had posed challenges to the operations of the school.
FROM FRANCIS DABRE DABANG, NAVRONGO
