PRESIDENT Akufo – Addo will on Wednesday commissioned the first phase of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development, known as the Eastern University.
The University being constructed by the Contract Construzioni Italia id sited at Somanya in the Eastern Region has its first phase been completed.
It was expected to be inaugurated on the 30th of August 2019 to start admitting students by January 2020 but it was later postponed.
Ahead of the President’s visit to the University Site which is part of his two-day regional tour, the construction of road networks across the university has been completed as well as the residences of the Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, the Lecture hall, Laboratory, the Administration, and the multi-purpose hall buildings and Key Offices are all completed.
The Eastern University which covers 521-hectare site will host the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, the School of Agric and Agro-Entrepreneurship Development, a multi-purpose hall, lecture halls, administrative offices, the vice-chancellor’s residence as well as the pro-vice-chancellor’s residence, residences for key officers and a students’ hostel.
In April 2013, the then President John Dramani Mahama inaugurated a committee to prepare a road map for the establishment of the University to focus on addressing critical environmental sustainable development challenges.
In 2014, the Cabinet submitted a bill to Parliament, which was approved and endorsed by President in 2016.
Parliament, in October 2016, ratified an agreement between the Government of Ghana and the Deutsche Bank for a 38-million euro loan for the construction of the university in Somanya and its sub-campus at Donkorkrom.
The construction of the Eastern University has faced a series of criticisms as many thought the fate of the University will be in limbo, but President Akufo-Addo during a tour to the site last November 2018 noted that the agreement between Ghana and the Italian Government for the establishment of the University does not allow him nor anyone else to relocate the University to Bunso, as is being propagated by the NDC, or to any part of the country, for that matter.
The university will offer a degree programme in Environmental Studies, Climate Change, Urban Development, Water Resources Development, Energy Sustainability, Energy EconomicsVice-Chancellor, and Agriculture.
The university is currently in the hands of interim management consisting of engineers and technicians who are taking care of the maintenance of equipment and other technical issues.
The University Council has constituted an interim governing council in the medium term which will appoint Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and other key management staff for the running of the University.
The Messers Contract Construzioni Italia, the Italian company constructing the University, explained that they had finished with the main construction and was more than 90 per cent complete with installations.
The lecture hall block for the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences has 13 halls with a total seating capacity of 1,545, a video conference room with a seating capacity of 40, a computer Research Room with a seating capacity of 24. Offices for senior lecturers, students’ common room, telecom rooms, washrooms and stores among others had all been completed. There will also be one graduate school, comprising three (3) research centres made up of the Centre for Agri-
Entrepreneurship, the Centre for Agriculture and Bio-Technology, and the Centre for Sustainable Resource Development.
BY Daniel Bampoe