Students call for endowment fund for Ghana’s oil zone

The Graduate Students Association of Ghana (GRASAG) has urged the government to institute an endowment fund solely for development in oil drilling and production areas in the Western Region.

This, it said, would help to avert the situation where the lack of development and unemployment would spark unrest as was happening in the Nigeria Delta Region of Nigeria.

The association said this in a communiqué at the end of its 15TH annual delegates congress held at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi.

It said involving all stakeholders especially the communities would pave the way for peace to prevail as well as improve the livelihood of the people.

The communiqué said although the oil find was good news to all Ghanaians, if pragmatic measures by way of institutional structures to promote judicious use of the proceeds were not put in place, the country could descend into the cesspool of civil unrest and anarchy that usually characterize nations that boast of oil.

The communiqué stated that any recklessness on the part of policy makers in the handling of the expected oil revenue would not only lead to the nation losing huge sums of money but could also spark conflict some day.

It commended the security services for efforts they were making to bring down armed robberies in the country despite logistical and human resource constraints.

On the issue of accountability, the association lauded the government’s efforts at ensuring financial discipline among public office holders.

The association, however, cautioned the government not to hide behind the veil of accountability to pursue political vendetta against its political opponents.

GRASAG also deplored the poor attention the government was paying to graduate studies in Ghana and appealed to it to heed the association’s demand for a 100 per cent upward adjustment of bursary and thesis grants.

It called for sustained public education on sanitation and attitudinal change to help rid the cities and towns of filth.

Source: GNA