PRESIDENT Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is expected to commission the first phase of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD), which is known as the Eastern University, on Wednesday.
The university, which was constructed by Contract Construzioni Italia at Somanya, was supposed to be inaugurated on August 30, 2019 to start admitting students by January 2020 but the completion date changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ahead of the President’s visit as 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, lecture hall, laboratory, administration, and the multi-purpose hall buildings and key offices.
The Eastern University, which covers a 521-hectare site, will host the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, School of Agric and Agro-Entrepreneurship Development, offering degree programmes in environmental studies, climate change, urban development, water resources development, energy sustainability, and agriculture.
In April 2013, the then President, John Mahama, inaugurated a committee to prepare a roadmap for the establishment of the university to focus on addressing critical environmental challenges.
In 2014, Cabinet submitted a bill to Parliament and in October 2016 the House ratified the agreement between the Government of Ghana and the Deutsche Bank for a 38-million Euro loan for the construction of the university at Somanya and its sub-campus at Donkorkrom, Afram Plains.
When the NDC lost the election and the NPP took over, the NDC started a propaganda that President Akufo-Addo was planning to relocate the university to Bunso, but the President, during a tour of Somanya areas, assured the chiefs and people that he had no intention to do so and urged them to disregard the spurious claims by the NDC.
The President said in November 2018 that the agreement between Ghana and the Italian government for the establishment of the university does not allow him or anyone else to relocate the university to Bunso or any other place as was being propagated by the NDC.
The university is currently in the hands of an  interim management consisting of engineers and technicians who are taking care of the maintenance of equipment and other technical issues, and 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.
By Daniel Bampoe