Minister fumes over abandoned school projects; promises speedy completion

Deputy Minister of Education, Mrs Barbara Asher Ayisi, has described as worrying the number of uncompleted school projects by successive governments.

She said this after inspecting some abandoned school projects in the Cape Coast North Constituency on Monday.

Mrs Ayisi said it is unclear why some of the school blocks which have been completed some years back, were left unused and were deteriorating.

The inspection, carried out on the instance of the Minister, was as a result of an investigations made during the 2016 campaign period to identify such projects in order to find means to complete them.

Mrs Ayisi has inspected four of the abandoned schools including a six unit classroom block at Efutu Kokwado, which was completed three years ago, but is still not in use, Bessakrom, Ebubonko and Nkanfua.

In spite of a constitutional provision that successive governments shall continue to execute projects and programmes commenced by the previous administration, it was not being adhered to.

“It looks like we have not been doing the right thing over the years so it is difficult to know which organisation is responsible for which project. In most cases the assemblies do not even know that a project is going on in their jurisdiction and this is wrong,” she said.

Mrs Ayisi said the Ministry was determined to embark on accelerated programmes to complete all abandoned school projects by the next academic year.

The Ministry would liaise with the assemblies to ensure the continuity of all projects to facilitate the development process of the country and implored all stakeholders to provide the needed support.

Going forward, she said, all relevant stakeholders must be briefed on projects in their communities to ensure continuity even after a change of Government so that the resources invested would not go waste.

Source: Ghana News Agency