UG: Residents have the right to complain during power cuts because they’ve paid fuel levy – Kwapong JCR Prez

Alexander Kuuku Osei-Baidoo
Alexander Kuuku Osei-Baidoo
4 Min Read

Junior Common Room President of the Alexander Adum Kwapong Hall at the University of Ghana, Derrick Mensah, has sided with residents in their complaints whenever the university community experiences power cuts and the generators in the halls are not put on. 

According to him, it is most often very to difficult to calm the residents down anytime there are power cuts because he believes they have the right to complain.

“It’s quite difficult, because students quite complain. In Alexander Kwapong Hall, it was mandated for new and level 200 residents to pay fuel levy. So then as soon as the lights goes off with the idea that they paid fuel levy, they sort of expected it to come back on and it is very difficult to want to calm them down, because they have the right to complain, we had to go through a couple of structural issues, but we are quite equipped to handle it,” he spoke to UniversNews.


He also called on the university management to look for alternative means to provide electricity to the university community in order to prevent power outages on campus.

“It is a brilliant policy because I think for University of Ghana students, the nation’s hope and glory, we should be advanced when it comes to things like electricity, and for an academic institution, nothing or no external factor should want to disrupt the free flow of information and the serene environment for individuals to learn.”

Derick Mensah further backed calls for the university to venture into the production of biomass energy to augment the electricity supply on campus.

“It is a feasible policy if it can augment the existing system, such that as soon as there’s an interruption in the power supply, this could be complemented aside the generators we have, but then secondly, in the interest of climate change, it is relatively cleaner energy so, yes, it is brilliant.”

Meanwhile, Research fellow at the Institute for Environmental and Sanitation Studies (IESS) at the University of Ghana, Dr. Ferdinand Tornyie, has said that the University of Ghana can be one of the leading institutions in Ghana and in the world if the production of biomass energy significantly taken into consideration 

According to him, management of the university has untapped potential in using renewable sources of energy, such as solar and biogas energy, to make the university one of the best institutions on the agenda of energy transition.

On the 19th of January 2023, the University of Ghana sent an email to all students informing them of a planned maintenance shutdown by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) on the 20th of January 2023, between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.

On Tuesday, January 24, 2023, the university community was also without power from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. This therefore raised questions about the stable supply of electricity to the campus among students.
 

Story by: Alexander Kuuku Osei-Baidoo | univers.ug.edu.gh

 

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