Professor Elvis Asare Bediako, the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) has appealed for support towards the completion of some infrastructure development to position the university to facelift the public university.
He said the completion of the educational infrastructure projects would also promote academic excellence and position the university to admit more students.
Prof Bediako made the appeal when he interacted with Madam Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister during her visit to the university’s main campus in Sunyani on Monday.
He said since academic work started in 2012 with 154 students after its establishment in 2011, the students' population had grown to more than 12,000 but regretted that construction work on some educational facilities had become a standstill due to lack of funds.
Prof Bediako said works on a four-storey lecture theatre being put up by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFUND) as well as a 3,000-capacity auditorium funded by the Bank of Ghana had all been abandoned for some time now.
He added works on the three major educational projects at the Dormaa Campus of the Faculty of Agriculture had also been abandoned saying only one of the projects was about 90 percent complete.
That notwithstanding, the VC said the university had been able to construct some projects through its Internally Generated Fund (IGF) and appealed to the government to come to their aid for the completion of the abandoned projects.
Responding, Mad Owusu-Banahene said the Regional Coordinating Council was engaging extensively with the Ministry of Roads and Highways to reshape and tar, and improve access roads in some major public educational institutions in the region.
They include UENR, Sunyani Technical University (STU), Berekum College of Education, and the Sunyani Nurses and Midwifery Training College (NMTC).
“The RCC has written a proposal to the Ministry of Roads and Highways for the tarring of access roads at these public educational institutions and we know something good would come out of it”, she explained.
Mad Owusu-Banahene tasked the university to advance the nation’s solar energy system to augment the national electricity supply.
“As a fully-fledged energy university we expect that you begin to produce affordable solar lamps and bulbs so that people could easily have other alternatives whenever there is a power outage,” she said.
Mad Owusu-Banahene said much was expected from the UENR and the STU towards holistic development of the Bono, East, and Ahafo Regions, and expressed the hope that the two universities would strengthen their partnerships.
Meanwhile, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) sighted construction works on access roads as well as the university’s entrance project were progressing steadily.
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Professor Elvis Asare Bediako