NUGS back Vandals

By William Yaw Owusu

Monday May 17, 2010
The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) says it supports any effort by the students of Commonwealth Hall of the University of Ghana to resist attempts by the university authorities to convert the hall into a mixed-gender graduate hall.

In the past weeks, there has been fierce resistance from the students of Commonwealth Hall, popularly called Vandals and its alumni, Old Vandals Association (OVA) not to allow the idea of bringing females to reside in Vandal City, a decision which takes effect from the 2010/2011 academic year.

The university authorities have already said they would not rescind the decision.
In a news release issued in Accra on May 15, 2010 and signed by Wonder Madilo, President of NUGS said “we have as union whose core responsibility is to protect and safeguard the interest of Ghanaian students backed the decision of the Vandals to kick against the decision of the university to convert the hall into a mixed-gender graduate students hall.”

“We however, patiently await the government’s decision on the matter and the long overdue anticipated investigation to bring to book persons who engaged in the acts that was purported to have occurred on that faithful graduation day.”

The release said “the infrastructural base of most of our universities has become near obsolete. The case of the collapse buildings in UG, Legon, KNUST and others are just a mere demonstration of the weak and over aged structures we have on our campuses.”

It said “while it will be prudent to use the internally generated funds and GETFund supports judiciously, all we see most often is the building of facilities of little significance to our course of study including swimming pools and stadia.”

“We therefore call for an independent audit into the disbursement of IGFs of all public tertiary institutions. We also call on GETFund to stop funding such objectionable projects and rather concentrate on the very relevant ones.”

The release called on students to refrain from acts of violence adding “recent alleged acts of violence and indiscipline amongst us must cease. We need each other, Ghana needs us, Africa needs us, the world as whole needs us. It is only with a united front that we can fight our battles.”

On taxes and tariffs the NUGS claimed the National Democratic Congress government had not fulfilled its promise in its manifesto for the 2008 general elections saying “Under the Fiscal Policy of the Manifesto, the NDC promised that the new NDC government will not introduce any new taxes but instead improve tax revenue by introducing reforms in the tax administration, shifting from reliance on direct taxes to indirect taxes and enhancing tax incentives,” asking “why the sudden shift we are not told”.

It asked “who is addressing the case of leakage and non-compliance of the tax payer? What about those evading tax? What are the punitive measures? What is the impact of taxes introduced earlier in this country?”

“The several taxes for example road tolls, ‘Akpeteshie”, (local alcoholic drink), public sector taxes, import duties etc. slapped on Ghanaians have only added to the myriad of the already existing hardship. One will want to question the motivation behind the tax hikes? Couldn’t there be any other way of mobilizing revenue for the State?”

It said the NUGS considers the Volta River Authority request for tariff increases of over 150 per cent as “insensitivity to the plight of the ordinary Ghanaian,” adding “if granted, consumers would pay more than twice what they currently pay for a unit of electricity.”

“We believe that the inefficiency of an institution like VRA cannot be slapped on the consumer. The services are nothing but poor. All around East Legon and other areas have for many years now being experiencing very low voltage and there seems to be no solution to the matter.”

“The economic burden on us as students is getting alarming. We therefore will resist any attempt by Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to impute the inefficiencies of these institutions on us. We call on government to intervene in the matter.”

Also see: www.dailyguideghana.com