EP Church pleads with Akufo-Addo to save university from closure

The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Rt. Rev. Dr Lt Col Bliss Devine Agbeko, has made a passionate appeal to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to intervene to halt the imminent closure of the Evangelical Presbyterian University College due to its indebtedness to a bank and Ghana Revenue Authority.

He said the school was currently unable to service its loans contracted from the National Investment Bank (NIB), honour its accumulated tax obligation to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and meet set standards by Ghana Tertiary Education Commission to qualify for Charter by August.

Obligations

The inability of the school and the church to meet all three obligations will culminate in the total closure of the school.

Rt. Rev. Agbeko made the appeal when he and other leaders of the church and the university paid a courtesy call on President Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House for his personal intervention in saving the first university in the Volta Region from collapse.

The development, he explained, was jeopardising the school’s readiness to meet requirements such as financial soundness and others to be able to secure the Presidential Charter in August or face closure.

This threat, he explained was from the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission.

He explained that the loan was contracted from NIB in their attempt to expand and offer more opportunities, and when the payment of the loan was becoming a challenge, the church took over payment.

"We are paying the loan and improving facilities at the university and this also has affected the payment of tax to the GRA.

"We are here not asking not to pay but pleading for some waivers or extension of time to able it to have the space to be able to mobilise resources to settle the GRA debt and the NIB loan.

“The debt and the interest on the NIB loan secured by the 14-year-old university have made the amount very colossal and we want to humbly plead with you to assist us because although the church has taken over the indebtedness, the sheer amount is derailing the church’s ability to meet other commitments,” he said.

Explanation

Explaining the complexity of the situation and the way forward, the Chairman of the university council, Dr George Afeti, said after self-evaluation, it was realised that the school was in good standing except for infrastructure and financial sustainability to be able to obtain a charter.

He noted that due to the fact that the university was built on the principle of quality education at an affordable cost, it was constrained to charge appropriate fees but had in recent times designed market driven professional courses and embarked on aggressive recruitment drive to bring in students.

These, he indicated, were yielding results, however due to the increasing levels of arrears in both the loan and the tax payment, it was unable to continue and pleaded with the President to urge the GRA to give them breathing space.

“So that instead of GRA threatening us every day that they are going to close down the university, we can have some payment plan that covers a couple of years so that we would able to pay and run the school at the same time,” he said.

Dr Afeti said other means included attracting private sector funding and organising consultancy services to businesses and expressed optimism that they would be able to pay.

Reaction

Reacting to the appeal, President Akufo-Addo said the church, over the years, had been committed to the welfare of the people and gave the assurance that “whatever can be done to assist the church to deliver on its mandate and its contribution, it is the responsibility of the government to see what can be done.”

He said the government would engage with the GRA on the way forward and with the Charter whose processes had not been completed because of the challenges, it would be looked into and the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission engaged.