Somanya University: Akufo Addo peddling falsehood or being economical with the truth - Sammy Gyamfi

Newly elected National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi has described President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo as very a disingenuous politician who is often economical with the truth.

His comments follow President Akufo Addo’s claim that the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in its desperation to come back to power to “create, loot and share”, has resorted to propaganda and falsehood, adding that the biggest opposition party is doing so because it has realized it will spend a long time out of government.

Debunking claims that his government intends relocating the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD) from Somanya to his hometown Bunso in the Eastern Region, the president said on Thursday, 22 November 2018 on day one of his three-day tour of the region that:

“I come from the area of Bunso, so it is very easy for them [NDC] to come and tell you that, "All the things that are meant for you, he is now taking it to his hometown.’ That is not the basis on which I am governing Ghana. I am not standing only for the people of Akim Abuakwa or Bunso, but I stand for the entire nation of Ghana”.

This deliberate act of misinformation, according to President Akufo-Addo, is being peddled the NDC because “these are people [NDC] who are looking at a long period in opposition”, explaining that the more desperate the NDC gets, the more fabrications they will put out.

“They, in their desperation to get to power, are prepared to say anything. Their purpose of coming back to power is to continue the programme of ‘Create, Loot and Share’. That programme is dead in Ghana. It will not happen again, that is not the programme the people of Ghana are looking for”, the President added.

But Mr. Gyamfi in an interview on the Gold Power Drive, Friday described the president’s assertions as a figment of his imagination.

He said, 'it is either the handlers of the president who brief the president on this Somanya issue weren’t fair to him relative to the facts of the matter or the president deliberately choose to peddle falsehood to the people of Somanya because clearly the facts of the issue contradicts the position of the president’.

"The university in question is part of the legacy of former president John Mahama as part of his vision of building a university in all the ten regions of Ghana and in line with the party’s 2012 manifesto promise to the people of the Eastern region."

"We passed the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD) Act of 2016, act 898 to establish this university in the Eastern region. When you look at section 3 of the act, it is provided in clear terms that the university shall be established in Somanya with satellite campuses in Donkorkrom and any other place as the council of the university may so determine, and so per the law establishing the university, it is clear that the headquarters of the university must be located in Somanya’’ he explained.

The newly elected NDC National Communications Officer also pointed out that before the NDC left power in 2017, funding of about 45 million dollars had already been secured from the Italian government through a Brazilian construction firm for the construction of the Somanya main campus of the university and also went ahead to cut the sod for the construction of the main headquarters of the university.

"The NPP took over and somewhere June/July 2018, this government took a loan facility to parliament for approval. That loan facility was to secure an amount of 90 million dollars from Exim bank of South Korea for a construction of a campus of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development at Bunso in the Akim Abuakwa south area of the Eastern region."

"So that was what we objected to, that was what we kicked against because that was not lawful and in breach of section 3 of the law establishing the university. At the time they brought that loan facility to parliament there was no university council in place and the act had not been amended and so it was unlawful for President Akufo Addo and his government to divert the $90 million facility the NDC government initiated for a campus in Bunso rather than Donkorkrom. We felt that was discriminatory, divisive and sectarian’’ Mr Gyamfi emphasized.