Former students of Ebenezer Senior High School have strongly opposed the plan of the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the Ablekuma West Constituency, George Cyril Bray, to create a public hospital on the school’s grounds as part of the Agenda 111 programme.
The group, which includes present and former students, has accused the MCE of “forcefully, rudely, and inhumanely” intruding on school properties in order to carry out the project.
“In this current age and level of civilization, such primitive and slavish acts are still going on within the Ghanaian set-up. The MCE of Ablekuma West is forcefully, rudely and inhumanly taking over a portion of the Ebenezer Secondary school land, which we feel is improper and we as old students have taken action against him,” past president of the Old Students Association, Dr. Nii Addo Bruce said.
Former students criticise the need for a public hospital on school grounds when other accessible properties outside the school have been designated for its construction.
“Why in the world would you place a hospital in the midst of students who are learning?” Dr. Nii Addo Bruce, former president of the Old Students Association, questioned.
He emphasised several existing infrastructure issues, such as a lack of classrooms and bungalows, that require the government’s attention rather than the hospital’s development.
The alumni organisation of the institution has promised to fight the invasion and has asked the government to rethink its decision.
The Agenda 111 plan is a government effort that aims to build 111 hospitals around the country.
The protest by the Old Students of Ebenezer Senior High School comes only weeks after the Chief and elders of Mpoase called on the government to summon the Municipal Chief Executive to account for his encroachment on the Ebenezer Senior High School’s land in order to carry out the Agenda 111 project.
The Mpoase Mantse, Nii Adote Din Barima I, who made the appeal at a news conference in Accra, condemned the MCE’s decision as “disrespect, arrogance, a show of political power, and an act without any recourse to the chief and elders of Mpoase,” he added.
The Mpoase Mantse said the land was released and earmarked for the school’s development saying that, “the school was originally sited on a 90-acre plot of land, however, the public had encroached on 45 plots, so that could not justify the need for another plot for the hospital project, particularly on the school’s compound without recourse to the school.”
