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By Allan Kweku Buah
"Public universities should start paying for their electricity" is a clarion call by the Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper for our tertiary institutions to help government in reducing its utility bills.
This news is not new to us because it actually surfaced in the media early this year, but a coalition of students' unions resisted the UPSA Declaration after a joint-stakeholder meeting with all their might.
And it's about time we deliberated on this pressing issue with all the logic it deserves as stakeholders of tertiary education. Personally, I have two kinds of stake in the matter at hand; firstly, as an undergraduate of the University of Cape Coast (UCC); and secondly, as a revolutionary blogger.
But,ethank God I am not a stalwart of any politically motivated students' association since I am free to dissect this issue devoid of partisan convictions.
To begin with a close scrutiny, the 1992 Constitution of Ghana provides that, "Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular, by progressive introduction of free education" [Article 25, Clause 1, Paragraph (c)].
This constitutional provision probably serves as the premise of conservative arguments held by students' unions like the Students Representative Council (SRC) and National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), which parade as independent of partisan control.
To be frank, the ordinary Ghanaian student whose plights are already worsening should not be burdened with the payment of utility bills at the university.
Yes, the central government failed to manage our energy sector efficiently which culminated in the power crisis we find ourselves in today. But the social democrats, i.e. the ruling national Democratic Congress (NDC) continued to bear the costs of electricity consumed by our public universities, which have now become an albatross on their neck.
Come on; let's face the facts! How on earth can a public university now in a bad economy like Ghana not be responsible for its power consumption? In fact, the government should be focused on fixing the ailing fundamentals of our economy which are the root cause of our economic woes today!
For I sincerely think that the administration of every Ghanaian university in partnership with the students' body should devise pragmatic methods for generating some form of electricity in the long term. However, the drastic conservation of power in our public universities is the only way to go now. Also, the ongoing negotiations between the government and universities should produce an outcome which will settle down students who are the innocent ones.
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