The Central Regional Minister, Hon. Ekow Okyere Panyin Eduamoah, has acknowledged that resources at the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) in the region will be channelled towards completion of existing projects before any new ones are initiated.
Addressing the press on Thursday, Hon. Eduamoah indicated that the move is aimed at reducing financial losses to the state and making prudent use of limited resources.
He noted to be numerous stalled projects in the Central Region under various levels of percentage, scattered all over the educational institutions, with some initiated and left abandoned to rot in the last 10 years.
"They're numerous abandoned GETFund projects here [in the region], we’ll not seek to initiate new ones but we will try to complete the existing ones if possible so that we will manage the few resources we have prudently,” the Minister admonished.
The Minister’s directive aligns with broader calls from institutions like the Secondary Schools, University of Cape Coast, and the Cape Coast Technical University who have all urged government to help complete their stalled GETFund projects to absorb the influx of students.
Hon. Eduamoah revealed this at the Central Regional Coordinating Council during the distribution of some building materials like roofing sheets and nails by the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) to four (4) outstanding second cycle institutions out of the seventeen districts in the region, affected two weeks ago by rainstorm.
Mr. Emmanuel Kwesi Dawood Mensah, the Central Regional NADMO Director, detailed the seventeen districts which got affected by the rainstorm to which the Central Regional NADMO Command received 200 packets of roofing sheets from national.
According to him, they have distributed most them to various District NADMO Directors as relieved items to be shared.
He expressed that the four (4) outstanding schools in these four districts includes the Fettehman SHS, which received 10 packets of roofing sheets, Asafora Technical Institute which had 10 packets of roofing sheets, St. Mary's Vocational Institute got 5 packets, as the Ghana National Inclusive Basic School had 5 packets together with qualities of roofing nails to each of these schools. He noted that each packet contains 10 pieces of roofing sheets.
Mr. Dawood further indicated that trees that serves as windbreaks have all been destroyed, leaving structures to the threat of rainstorms in most of these affected schools.
Mr. Kwesi Dawood appealed to well-to-do individuals, organizations to assist these affected schools to aid the free flow of quality education delivery in the communities.
Headmistress of Fettehman SHS, Madam Eunice-Mary Yaboah, seized the occasion to express the joy in her and other colleagues for the intervention and promise to adhere to the advise offered them for onward protection of their schools.
Sompaonline.com//Eric Annan