MORE OFFER LAND FOR VARSITY IN VR (BACK PAGE, FEB 13, 2010)

THE Volta Regional Co-ordinating Council (VRCC) has been inundated with offers of land towards the establishment of the proposed University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in the region.
According to the council, the offers had come from Ziavi, Sokode GreenValley, Adaklu, all in the Ho Municipality, for the central campus in Ho and an external one at Hohoe.
The Volta Regional Minister, Mr Joseph Amenowode, made this known when members of the national task force on the establishment of public-funded universities in the Volta and Brong Ahafo regions paid a familiarisation tour of the sites in Ho yesterday.
He said efforts were underway to make the lands in Ho surveyed while over 1000 acres of land had already been surveyed and designed at Hohoe.
He said the region had one of the best regional hospitals in the country that could easily serve as a teaching hospital, adding that there were equally a number of tertiary health institutions already established in Ho for the university.
“We are prepared even today for the start of the university,” he said, stating that the rest bordered on the goodwill of the task force to make it take-off by September, this year.
“My case is that the Volta Region is prepared for the University Health and Allied Sciences,” he said.
The regional minister said the visit of the task force was opportune because every one in the region was now conscious that there would be a state-funded university in the region.
The Chairman of the task force, Professor Samuel Sefa-Dede, said it was crucial that the ground work was done properly.
He said more consultations would be held with the view to submitting a cogent report to the government by June, this year.
Prof. Sefa-Dede assured the people of the region that the task force would not do anything that would unduly delay the take-off of the university.
A presidential advisor and head of policy co-ordination and implementation, Dr Christine Amoako-Nuamah, reiterated that the promise of the government on the proposed university was real and would be fulfilled before its mandate for the first term in office ends in 2012.
She said the government was mindful that it required a lot of resources and would live to that challenge and expectation.
Dr Amoako-Nuamah was happy that deliberations so far were going on at such a fast pace that she was personally overwhelmed about the enthusiasm.