Professor Ernest Aryeetey, the immediate Former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana says his relationship with the current Vice Chancellor of the University; Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu has now turned sour due to false allegations levelled against him.
Opening up on his relationship with the current UG Vice-Chancellor in an interview on ’21 Minutes with KKB’, Prof. Aryeetey said they are no longer friends because of the deliberate attempts made by the new managers of the institution to tarnish his image.
According to him, though he wanted to enjoy his retirement peacefully, circumstances surrounding the UG Medical Centre and allegations levelled against him are overwhelming, making him reach a point where he can no longer sit back and watch Prof. Oduro Owusu and his colleagues destroy his hard-earned reputation.
He said, “When I was about to retire, I was looking forward to being able to write my books, do my research, travel around the world, talk about my ideas, share them with people young and old, that’s what I do best. I didn’t think that I will be spending the first year of my retirement fighting to salvage my reputation”.
“I’m not enjoying talking about University of Ghana like this, but I’ve reached the point where it’s my reputation. Somebody is destroying you, your reputation and you are held back in terms of how far you can go in explaining yourself. You don’t want to sound negative but the institution that you used to run, people tell me things like Oh don’t take it personal. You are destroying me and you say don’t take it personal? How else do you take things?
Prof Aryeetey further explained that “Your image is going downhill, and people are being made to believe that this guy had question marks about him and I’m told by friends and colleagues don’t take it personal. Yes, I try very hard not to take it personal but I also think the reason why I do this kind of interview with you, I think it’s important that Ghanaians know the truth. If the truth favours me, fine. It’s important that the truth is known.”
In 2015, the University of Ghana under the leadership of Prof. Aryeetey entered into a Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreement with Africa Integras to invest US$64 million in the construction of 1,000-bed new students’ hostel for undergraduate and post-graduate students on the Legon campus.
The said project was structured as a 25-year Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) contract.
However, reports were rife quite recently that the University signed the agreement without doing due diligence.
The project was set to include the construction of an expanded facility for the College of Humanities, a new College of Education, a new dedicated facility for the College of Basic and Applied Sciences, and the Institute of Technology and Applied Science, as well as a new facility for the College of Health Sciences, which will be located near the new teaching hospital on campus.
Prof. Aryeetey, responding to the issue said he has over the years struggled to get the university community to appreciate the efforts he went through to get the project done but all attempts made by him has proved futile since his emails were being blocked by the management.
He further indicated that the current Vice-Chancellor in an attempt to sabotage him, denied him access to present his report and comments on the Africa Integras project to the academic board and he (Prof. Oduro Owusu) went ahead to present a false report to the board.
According to him, he hasn’t been treated fairly since the issue came up and will only be fair if he’s given an equal opportunity to state his case and explain it further to Ghanaians for them to decide what the truth really is.
“I have struggled over the past year to get the university community to appreciate exactly what progresses we went through to get the project in place. Some of my efforts to inform the community through emails have been made impossible by the university by blocking my email. The email to the university community has been blocked. So I have to find other ways to get my voice heard. It’s not fair”, he lamented.
“A report was written by a committee that was put together by the Vice Chancellor to look at the Africa Integras project; I wrote a rebuttal to the report, University of Ghana wouldn’t allow even the academic board to see my comments on the report. The Vice Chancellor made a presentation to the academic board based on that report which was largely false. I wrote comments on it, I said when they’re going to distribute this to the board, add my comments to it. I think it’s fair...... It wasn’t done”, he added bitterly.
Confusion over the UG Medical Centre
The UG Medical Centre, which cost about $217 million is still not operational, although phase one of the project has been completed for about a year now.
There is currently a tussle between the Ministry of Health and the University over the rightful managers of the facility.
Whereas the Ministry of Health believes it is the appropriate body to properly manage the facility, authorities at the University think otherwise.
Following the public uproar over the delay in opening the facility, the Ministry of Health further disclosed that it needs about $6 million to make it operational.
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