UEW dismissals unfortunate – UTAG

The President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana- Winneba Chapter(UTAG-UEW) Frimpong Duku has described the dismissal of lecturers at the University of Education, Winneba as unfortunate.

The governing council of the University of Education, Winneba, on Tuesday, August 14, 2018 dismissed five principal officers of the institution following an emergency meeting on Monday.

One other official has had her appointment terminated.

The five are the Vice-Chancellor who was serving a suspension, Professor Mawutor Avoke, Finance Officer, Dr. Theophilus Senyo Ackorlie, Daniel Tetteh, Mary Dzimey and Frank Owusu Boateng.

They were interdicted in July 2017 by the UEW governing council to allow for investigations after it emerged that some vital documents at some offices at the centre of an ongoing investigation had gone missing.

In an interview with state-broadcaster-GBC following the development, the President of UTAG said its inappropriate for the dismissal of these individuals to be made public before the University handing them their dismissal letters.

“I presumed that this is a rumour- And the reason why i said, I consider this as rumour is that, the members most of them are even in town. So I’m sure from the Administration to their offices or to their house, it won’t even take about a minute. So if we believe that these individuals are culpable of whatever offenses we are alleging and you want to sack them, I’m sure you didn’t appoint them through the media, so the first thing they should have done is to give them a letter of dismissal.

“I have spoken to individuals affected and so far the individuals I’ve spoken to do not have any letters dismissing them. That is why I said that would’ve been rather unfortunate because some of them are in Winneba here and if information should go to Accra before coming to Winneba, then that is rather unfortunate.”

Meanwhile he believes the matter is in court and hence the Judiciary ought to be given that mandate to determine the outcome of the case.

“… I said its unfortunate because this case is at the Cape Coast High court and its expected that once a case is at the court, you allow the court to go through the process of determining the outcome. So if a case is pending at the court and you go ahead to do something that to me is contemptuous then I believe that is unfortunate. So far as I’concerned the case was adjourned on the 22nd of October, so it means we haven’t come to the final determination of the case.”

Background

A Winneba High Court in 2017 ordered Professor Mawutor Avoke, to step aside until a case brought against him and the University’s Governing Council is determined.

The order was made in a case brought before the court by one Supi Kofi Kwayera, who insisted that the Vice Chancellor and the Finance Officer, were operating under the institution’s defunct governing council.

The plaintiff adduced that the University’s Council’s mandate had expired in November 2013, but the Education Ministry failed to constitute a new Governing Council for the university, and rather allowed and permitted the defunct Governing Council which had no mandate whatsoever to continue the functions of a properly constituted Governing Council as if same had been properly constituted.

This, Mr. Kwayera insisted was unlawful, and hence his legal action against the University of Education, Winneba.

However, before the substantive claims were looked into, the University, through its lawyers, applied to the court to dismiss the suit on the three counts, but the application was dismissed.

The High Court subsequently found Professor Avoke, and the school’s Finance Officer, Dr. Theopholus Senyo Ackorlie, guilty of procurement and other financial irregularities.

The court subsequently ordered the retrieval of all monies paid to the contractors of the North Campus Roads and a forensic audit of the project.