President pledges to develop University of Mines

Tarkwa (W/R), July 26, GNA - President John Evans Atta Mills has pledged GH¢100 million from the Minerals Development Fund, to boost the infrastructure development of the Tarkwa-based University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) for the next five years. President Mills who made the pledge in a speech read on his behalf by Mr Alex Tettey Enyo, Minister of Education, at the first congregation of the university said the money was not part of the annual GETFund allocations.

The university awarded degrees in the various disciplines to 230 graduates.

Out of the number, 34 were awarded Master of Science (M. Sc), 197, Bachelor of Science (B. Sc) while 31 obtained first class. President Mills called on the Vice Chancellor to present the yearly activities and budget of the university for the next four years to his office before the end of the year.

He said his administration was committed to ensure that the university got all the needed support to succeed as the economic development of the country was intrinsically linked to the development of the university.

Prof Daniel Mireku-Gyimah, Vice Chancellor, UMaT, noted that Ghana is potentially rich because it is endowed with abundant mineral resources like gold, diamond, bauxite, manganese, salt, iron and limestone.

He said the challenge was how to use the correct mining and processing methods to exploit these minerals in an environmentally friendly manner.

Prof Mireku-Gyimah said the resolution of this challenge was subsumed in the mandate of the university which underscored its role in national development. "The direct logical inference is that if we need to develop our country to become an industrialised nation then we need to develop this university and we need to resource it amply so that it can carry out its mandate effectively," he said. Prof Mireku-Gyimah said the Wassa Fiase Traditional Council had donated a 26-kilometre land for the development of the new campus of the university.

The university started as the Tarkwa Institute and was officially inaugurated in October 1953 by Sir Arden Clarke, the Governor of the then Gold Coast. In 1960, it became the Tarkwa School of Mines. In 1976, it was affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Mines and Technology (KNUST) as a faculty and given the name KNUST School of Mines. In 2000, it was re-organised to become Western University College and on November 3, 2004, an Act of Parliament established it as a fully fledged University of Mines and Technology, which empowered it to award its own certificates, diplomas and degrees.