The government will provide seed money for the Simon Diedong Dumbo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS) to enable the university address some of its infrastructural challenges, the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has announced.

This is in recognition of the fact that since its establishment, the university has not seen any significant infrastructural support.

“I am happy to announce that this year, the government, through the GETFund, will make available some seed money for the SDD-UBIDS,” Mr Iddrisu announced at the inauguration of the Governing Council of the university in Accra last Monday.

Council members

The 11 Council members, chaired by a government nominee and a former Defence Minister, Dr Benjamin Bewa-Nyog Kunbuor, include Prof. Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile and three other persons nominated by the President, Prof. Abazaami Joseph, Prof. Hamidatu S. Darimani and Prof. Adam Bawa Yussif.

The others are a representative of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, Dr Joseph K. Wulifan; a member elected by the Convocation, Prof. John Yaw Akparep; a representative of the Teachers and Education Workers Union, Ernestina Nar-Ire, and a representative of CHASS, Baro Primus.

The rest are a representative of the university nominated by the Students’ Representative Council, Festus Kwaku Ofosu, a representative of the regulatory body responsible for tertiary education not below the rank of a director nominated by the minister, Prof. Domwin Dabire Kuupole, and an expert in business from the industry nominated by the minister, Dr Musheibu Mohammed-Alfa.

Government support

Mr Iddrisu said the university had served and provided opportunity for many people and young people in and around northern Ghana to have access to higher education, adding that it was driving the quest for equitable development through accessible quality higher education in the northern part of the country.

He explained that as part of the President’s quest to support the university to grow, “I am aware that you have some outstanding ECG legacy debt”, explaining that the ministry would work with the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission to offset the burden of that debt.

Mr Iddrisu appealed to Prof. Kuupole to use his experience as a former vice-chancellor to support the university.

Initial establishment

Dr Kunbuor, while thanking the President and the Education Minister for entrusting the university to them, recalled that he chaired a cabinet committee that finalised the bill and gave cabinet approval for the establishment of the university.

He was happy that the university was running a faculty of law, and called for support from the ministry and the government for the faculty.

“If the sustainable development goals include access to justice, you can only get access to justice when the geographical spread of legal resources is even across the whole country.

“That is why when you are having these types of academic or university facilities, you must make sure that you maximise them,” Dr Kuubour stated.

Responding to a request by the minister to help in the running of the university, Prof. Kuupole, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, pledged his readiness to support the vice-chancellor to succeed.