Dr. Wilberforce Dzisah
Some concerned staff of Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) are calling for investigation into the conduct of the Rector of the institute Dr. Wilberforce Dzisah.
According to them, the Rector’s actions including allegations of corruption are running down one of Africa’s foremost journalism training institutions and want the government to restore normalcy without any further delay.
The disgruntled staff are claiming that the Rector together with his cronies in the heat of the 2016 general election collected huge per diems for a two-week visit to the United Kingdom but never embarked on the trip and added that money collected was never returned to chest.
“It was clear they were embarking on the trip just to celebrate the NDC victory that never happened although they claimed they were attending a conference. Some of these people were behind the NDC communications strategy to unleash personal attacks on then NPP flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo and when they realized the results were turning in favour of then opposition NPP, they cancelled the trip but have since failed to return the money they took to the institute,” the concerned staff alleged.
“As we speak, the Rector has travelled to the UK on an educational tour without the knowledge of the staff since no information about the trip was communicated to us although it is GIJ that is sponsoring it. The Workshop and Conferences Committee of the institute is not aware of such an arrangement,” they claimed.
They claimed that in the second semester of the 2016/2017 academic year, the Rector allegedly compressed the timetable that should have run for 16 weeks to 12 weeks just for the general election to pass.
The staff are also claiming that the Rector has rented a very expensive accommodation without recourse to the Academic Board and the amount involved is still undisclosed.
They further claimed that auctioning of the institute’s vehicles were done without the council’s approval adding that “surprisingly, the Nissan Patrol the Rector was using after it had gone for servicing was included among the fleet of vehicles that were auctioned and this attracted the ire of the previous council.”
According to the concerned staff, the Rector is still holding on as Acting Dean of the School of Graduate Studies of the institute although there were other Phd applicants at the institute who could do the job.
They claimed there are what they called “growing academic dishonesty” at the institute since some students have been graduating without having to complete their academic work and also alleged that the appointment of external examiners was fraught with corruption.
“In spite of the financial constraints of the institute, the Rector has been bringing in external examiners who are mostly his cronies from the UK when there are many qualified examiners in the country. The amount involved in bringing the UK examiners is huge.”
The concerned staff claimed the Rector is a dyed in the wool NDC person who does not tolerate his political opponents especially the NPP alleging that “once he detects you have some sort of affiliation with the NPP, he is going to frustrate you.”
“We are appealing to the Ministry of Education to investigate our claims because the impunity is getting out of hand.”