Former students of Ebenezer Senior High School have expressed strong disapproval of the decision by the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the Ablekuma West Constituency, George Cyril Bray, to establish a public hospital within the school’s premises under the Agenda 111 initiative.
The group, comprising both current and past students of the school, has accused the MCE of “forcefully, rudely and inhumanly” encroaching on lands belonging to the school, to execute 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.
The Former students are questioning the necessity of using school lands for a public hospital when other available lands outside the school have been allocated 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 highlighted some existing infrastructural challenges, such as insufficient classrooms and bungalows, that need the government’s attention rather than the construction of the hospital.
The school’s alumni association has vowed to resist the encroachment and has called on the government to reconsider its decision.
The Agenda 111 initiative is a government program aimed at constructing 111 hospitals across the country.
The action by the Old Students of Ebenezer SHS comes weeks after the Chief and elders of Mpoase called on the government to call the Municipal Chief Executive to order on his encroachment of the land of the Ebenezer Senior High School for the execution of the Agenda 111 project.
The Mpoase Mantse, Nii Adote Din Barima I, who made the call at a press conference in Accra, described the move by the MCE as a mark of “disrespect, arrogance, a show of political power, and an act without any recourse to the chief and elders of Mpoase,” he said.
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.”
