The government has settled on February 2022 to operationalise an E-Block at Aflao in the Volta Region following claims last week it has been abandoned.
Head of Communications at the Ministry of Education, Kwasi Kwarteng, said Thursday, October 28, 2021, that after refurbishment, the Senior High School block will serve as classrooms for students early next year.
“The building is completed. What is left is the refurbishment, chairs and all that. We are not sleeping. We are very hopeful that the Aflao one and others that are yet to be completed, by the next academic year, we should see it in the Computerised School Selection and Placement System so that students will access it. That is somewhere in February [2022],” he told Citi News.
The Paramount Chief, Torgbui Adzongaga Amenya Fiti V, expressed frustration over the delay to operationalise the E-Block when members of the Education Committee of Parliament visited him.
Unhappy that the project seems to have been abandoned, he gave an ultimatum to the Minister of Education to complete the project.
The following week, President Nana Akufo-Addo in an interview on Accra-based, Peace FM questioned if the chief has the power to give such an ultimatum to the Minister. He then asked the chief to complete the project if he wants.
The President’s reaction has been criticised as harsh and an inappropriate response to the revered traditional ruler.
The skirmish ignited discussions about abandoned projects under the Nana Akufo-Addo administration.
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However, Mr Kwarteng told Citi News that the government has continued and almost completed some of the schools under the E-block project, contrary to claims that the NPP government has abandoned them.
“For 21 of them, we are very hopeful that they will be completed and operationalised soon. Sixteen of them are between 25% and 60% complete.
“Twenty-six of them have their contracts terminated. If you look at them, some of them are at sub-structural levels.
“You award it to the contractor, and you don’t provide funding and the contractor can come to the site once and does not appear on site months later.
“The contracts have been terminated outrightly. For some of them, after two or three years, you see that the contract is still at 1% completion stage,” he said.