Some disgruntled residents of communities bordering the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in the Central Region have staged a protest and blocked one of the entrances to the university.
The demonstrating youth, numbering over 100 and clad in red clothes and red arm and headbands, engaged in the protests on Wednesday October 12. The youth claimed the university had failed to provide employment for them while women who go to sell at the tertiary institution are driven away by security.
According to them, scholarships for indigenes are diverted and given to other people and the university does not consider students from the communities for admission.
Furthermore, they said the university was unconcerned about deplorable roads in their communities and students from the institution had been impregnating women from the communities indiscriminately without taking responsibility for the act.
Meanwhile, authorities of the university have refuted the allegations, indicating that even though resources were inadequate, several projects aimed at helping the communities had been undertaken though the university’s Corporate Social Responsibility programmes.
The Public Affairs Director of the UCC, Major Kofi Bentum (rtd.) said the university met with authorities from the communities in August and explained to them “that the university is not government and it is not our responsibility to provide them with facilities”.
He continued: “We do Corporate Social Responsibility depending on our budget and our ability to do that. The university is not a profit-making entity.”
He said that the opinion leaders understood their explanations, saying it was “rather unfortunate” that the issue had degenerated into a protest.
Mr Bentum stated that the university recently commissioned an eight-seater toilet facility in one of the communities, after which the other communities also requested a similar project.
However, the funds of the university could not cater for all those projects at the same time, something the institution communicated to the community leaders.
On the issue of UCC students impregnating women in the surrounding communities, Mr Bentum said: “That is a love affair between two consenting adults. If they are not adults, it is criminal and we allow the law to take its own course,” he told Joy FM on Wednesday October 12.
“University students are also Ghanaians and like anybody else they can love and be loved.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
