The high hostel fees being charged by some university managements in Ghana is badly affecting students in Ghana, the President of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) Emmanuel Boakye Yiadom, has told President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
He pleaded with the president to deal with the university management that create artificial shortage of accommodations on campuses in order to profiteer from the students.
He said this when he and some of the other executives of NUGS paid a visit to the President at the seat of government to table some concerns before him.
Some students at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) on Friday, July 16 demonstrated over what they describe as outrageous hostel fees. The students took to the principal streets of KNUST and marched peacefully through to all the seven traditional halls on campus amidst chanting war songs.
The number of protestors gained momentum as they walked through the halls. There was heavy police presence to ensure a chaos-free incident.
One of the leaders of the protesting students who identified himself as Nii, while speaking on Akoma FM’s current affairs and political show GhanAkoma told sit-in host Sir John that “our main aim is to let authorities know our plight. We are paying so much”.
“Some of the hostels have increased their fees by 50 percent, so you see we are not only crying for ourselves, we are crying for our parents and guardians so we will march from campus to the rent control office for authorities to know our situation,” he said.
The NUGS President told President Akufo-Addo on Thursday August 19 that “There has been an issue of astronomical increase in hostel prices over the years on our various campuses and this is something that has been affecting Ghanaian students for long.
“As a union, we have made certain contacts and we have realised there are certain deliberate attempt by some university management just to create an artificial shortage on campuses so we are also calling on your highest authority to a certain point get to the university management to be flexible on the Build, Operate and Transfer policies in the various universities.”
Source: myghanadaily
