Kumasi, Aug 09, GNA - The Catholic University College of Ghana will need nine billion cedis to build a lecture hall block, an administrative block and a hostel capable of accommodating 100 students as the university moves to its permanent site at Fiapre near Sunyani at the beginning of the 2006/2007 academic year.

Dr Kwame Donkoh-Fordwor, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University, said an additional one billion cedis would be needed to complete work on 10 Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) bungalows that the university has acquired at Kato near Berekum for staff accommodation.

He was speaking at a fund-raising dinner for the development of the university in Kumasi at the weekend.

Dr Donkoh-Fordwor said the university is accommodated in temporary premises at the Sunyani Diocesan Pastoral Centre where 200 students are housed in rented houses.

He said the funding of the university was going to make serious demands on the resources of the church and that almost all the funds for the university had come from contributions from the Bishops' Conference, dioceses, parishes and individual families.

The Vice-Chairman said the start-up and operational expenses of the university in the first year amounted to 300,000 US dollars.

He said the revenue to meet these expenses came in part from tuition fees that accounted for about 30 per cent with the remaining 70 per cent coming from the Ghanaian Catholic community.

"The development fund for the next three years is projected in the order of one million US dollar a year.''

''It is our hope that all efforts will be made each year to raise 400,000 dollars within Ghana, 400,000 dollars from Ghanaians in the Diaspora and 200,000 dollars from external non-Ghanaian sources", he said.

The Most Rev Peter Akwasi Sarpong, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Kumasi, said the Catholic Church has always attached great importance to university education.

He said the absence of a Catholic University in Ghana, until four years ago, was an unfortunate in the church's evangelisation efforts. The Most Rev Charles Palmer-Buckle, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, who launched the appeal for funds, said there was the need for the church to start earnestly with the project before other bodies come to its aid.

He said the church has about 2.1 million members and if they can be motivated to be committed, they could help in the development of the university. 09 Aug 05