University road tolls foretell grim tidings
The old often wrongly believe that things are not as good as they were in their time. But I think we are becoming oblivious of simple rights and responsibilities.
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I was therefore highly interested in the news that the University of Ghana authorities were placing impediments to access to the university grounds.
The university is a public institution and people should have access to it. But such institutions are entrusted to boards, councils and the like who in a way own it and can exercise rights on them. In the case of the university, the responsible authority is the Council. The recent Act or law governing it confers wide powers on it. It can raise funds to discharge its functions.
These functions include teaching, research and the promotion of high education. It needs money for all this. But I believe at the moment it hasn’t even the money to pay some of its essential staff.
What should the Council therefore do? Abandon some of its functions or reduce further the quality of teaching and research? It has rightly decided to raise funds which it is empowered to do. The way it seeks to raise funds may not be agreeable to the public, and that is what all the heated debate about tolls is about. But the first question to address is why the university resorts to desperate ways of raising money.
Information available indicates that whereas the university was formerly fully funded by the government, today it receives only 49 per cent of the money it needs from the government.
The university must therefore find the remainder of the money it needs.
The shortfall in funding is not restricted to Legon. Many public institutions are in similar difficulties.
This suggests our inability to raise funds to meet our needs. It indicates hiccups in the economy. It casts unfavourable light on our financial administration.
These are the issues which should engage the attention of the people and Parliament. interrogating the minister and the experts responsible for roads, education and so on and making soothing statements may calm the nerves of the public, but the solution to the problem is to find money for the university and other institutions. We should heed to the warning of the grim economic future ahead.
Our Parliament and leaders should face the facts, come up with plans, tell us what sacrifices we have to make and show the way forward by concrete action and example.
Meanwhile we should accept our responsibilities even as we fight for our rights. The university can impose conditions upon entry to its property and we should accept our responsibility while we maintain our rights as taxpayers that the Council should be mindful of public reaction.
Now, if the Council is properly constituted, some of its members should anticipate public and student reaction to its decisions.
Council should therefore know how to get the public to understand what it does and the authorities should therefore select members of councils and boards with care.
Today, we have people living in enclaves with gates and security guards who should know whom you are visiting before you are let in. The road leading from the new flats to La Wireless is blocked for use by the residents of the flats at the entrance. This appears illegal but we allow it. Yet when I complain about the use of the road through Achimota School to West Cantonments and Legon, people refuse to accept the fact that the road is a private Achimota School road.
We should be consistent. We should accept what is sanctioned by law. There should be no thoroughfare dividing Achimota School.
Personal greed should not determine our beliefs and actions. When people move on to a land which is not theirs, we call it encroachment. It is stealing and should be treated as such. I know some suffer because they were misled by developers. But here the authorities should do their job and not wait until buildings are erected before they act as the Tema authorities did.
Respect for the laws will lead to a correct attitude towards the road tolls of the University of Ghana. It will free us from ‘beating about the bush’ and concentrate on questions about the state of the economy and measures to stem the downward slide which is hurting many. We should heed to the warning given by the road tolls established by the University of Ghana.