Acting University of Ghana SRC President, Kwame Amo Ntow-Fianko is calling on all student leaders to engage in more dialogue with their constituents to reach a consensus in making the construction of the SRC Student Hostel a reality.

“All students need to come on board when it comes to initiatives like this. We need to have an SRC-owned hostel. And for those of you who think the SRC-owned hostel is meant for just SRC executives, that is delusional. We are looking at a hostel that will accommodate over 5000 people,” he said.

He was speaking at the SRC forum held on Tuesday, 1st June, 2021 at the SRC Union Building.

The forum was to engage student leaders to deliberate on matters concerning student welfare.

According to Ntow-Fianko, the construction of the SRC hostel would not only contribute to salvaging the residential challenges the University faces, but students would also have an opinion in determining hostel fees unlike what transpires in the University-owned hostels and University of Ghana Enterprise Limited (UGEL)

“Assuming we have the hostel that could accommodate about 5000 students owned by the SRC; the SRC being a major stakeholder, this means that they would not have the monopoly or discretion to increase the hostel fees as it happens at the hostels on the Northern stretch of campus that is TF, Pent, Evandy and Bani,” he added.

He also mentioned that regardless of the number of years that it may take to finish the construction “we need to have the hostel for students, an SRC owned hostel” to mitigate the residential deficit in the University of Ghana.

The Way Forward

The SRC President acknowledged that the SRC dues were not enough to kickstart the construction, hence, students had to engage in more dialogue to ascertain how to make the vision a possibility.

Projection of the cost of construction of the SRC Hostel according to the President is between 45 million to 50 million Ghana Cedis.

He said that a blueprint of the hostel is ready, plausible payment plans as well-considered and that all the SRC needs is the commitment of students.

At the back of this, the President hinted that a communique would be issued in due time to engage students as well as management of the university to bring finality to the SRC Students Hostel conversation.