GETFund to complete all abandoned projects at UBIDS

The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) is taking inventory of all stalled projects for repackaging and completion.

The objective is to ensure that all abandoned projects financed by the fund were completed before embarking on new ones.

It would ensure that the beneficiary institutions get the full benefits of the projects and reduce the challenges faced by these institutions.

Abandoned projects

The Deputy Administrator of the fund, Alhassan Sualihu Dandaawa, disclosed this when he toured some of the abandoned projects on the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) in Wa in the Upper West Region.

The abandoned projects included a three-storey office complex, a central library and 600-female hostel facility.

Mr Dandaawa said all those projects, when completed, would bring a lot of relief to the student body and the university as a whole.

He was worried that all the abandoned projects were started by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) but left uncompleted by the previous government.

He assured the management of the university that the current government would ensure that all the abandoned projects were revived and completed before embarking on new ones.

Mr Dandaawa said if the previous government had undertaken to complete at least one project, it would have relieved the university of the infrastructural challenges it was currently facing.

He said he was in the region to inspect all the projects funded by the fund that had been abandoned and report on them to the administrator.

Mr Dandaawa said there were a number of abandoned projects dotted all over the country, adding that it would be prudent to complete those before embarking on new ones.

He asked the management of the university to submit the certificates of contractors that were due to the fund for consideration to enable them to move back to site.

The Vice- Chancellor of SDD-UBIDS, Prof Emmanuel K. Derbile, was grateful to the Deputy Administrator for visiting them to find at first hand the state of the project.

He said as a university, UBIDS “does not have a central administration block. Where we are currently was a residential facility that we converted into an office facility.”

Prof. Derbile said the university had intended to build a three-storey office complex as its central administration block and was hoping that it could be completed early to enable them to move in.

Due to lack of office space, he said, four faculties and a school were currently operating in rented premises in town and believed that when the complex was completed, some of the faculties could be moved to campus.

Again, Prof. Derbile said the auditorium used by the university for most of its programmes lacked furnishings and during programmes such as matriculation and congregation, chairs would have to be moved from the lecture halls to the auditorium.

This, according to him, posed challenges to management and the students and appealed for support to furnish the auditorium and also fix the electrical installations to make the place conducive for such programmes.