Dear Diana Voski,
OF THE SRC’S INEPTITUDE, INCOMPETENCE AND APPARENT DISINTEREST AND INDIFFERENCE TOWARDS THE MANY PROBLEMS AFFECTING AND FACING STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA.
I write to you this, angry and sad. I know you may not be expecting this, but take a few minutes off your busy schedule and digest this.
Yesterday, while at lectures, I did what is not expected of me, bearing in mind how serious I am at lectures, to read a message in my WhatsApp inbox from the Students’ Representative Council. You may know the great interest I have in the running of the SRC and how I read all the thrash they send daily.
Yesterday’s was not different from the many messages they keep sending me, and I know you receive some. Apparently, it was not different in importance from the many they keep sending daily. On a scale of 10, I rated it 0.5. I think I was charitable, a friend who received same, deleted it as fast as he could.
It was about a form that had been created on google forms asking students to make inputs into how they expected next semester’s SRC week celebration to look like.
I was indeed scandalised when I saw that. That for the myriad of problems facing the student populace, the SRC had found their voice and pen only when matters of SRC week celebration came up. I don’t think students deserve this. Not to say, in the least that, the celebration of SRC week is unnecessary, far from that, in fact, this program is entrenched in the SRC constitution (and even though the Constitution says it must be in the first semester, it’s been pushed to next semester. We’ll talk about the illegalities therein when next I write to you). The SRC should be concerned about everything like they they are about this.
For one week now, residents of the Great *Commonwealth Hall* are battling an acute water shortage from what I learned to be a burst pipe beneath the earth crust. The JCR have been battling it all alone, the SRC don’t seem to care, of course, there’s no money to be made there. VANDALS will rise up soon, but let no one say anything bad when they do, their patience is running out.
You and I and all other students know the situation with the WiFi on campus. It’s in a terrible state that a colleague joked that if you wanted to connect unto the network, you may go up North; Tamale and come back, it’ll still be ‘authenticating’. The problem with the WiFi which students have paid for in a state dystopia and kakotopia. There seem to be no solutions in sight, the closest we’ve come, is putting up a petition online to solicit students signatures.
Students have paid for this service to be rendered but we are not getting the value for our money. This component of the fee is embedded in the heart of the fee, you can’t register without paying. There’s been no official communication with students from management as to the reasons behind the problem. And it seems no one cares.
Those of us on the ‘main campus’ of the main campus enjoy it relatively but what of our colleagues at Diaspora, what of those who reside from African Union Hall (Pentagon) to James Topp Nelson Yankah Hall (TF)? Don’t they pay that component of the fee? They do, so why are they not enjoying what they’ve paid for. The SRC doesn’t seem to care.
The WiFi must work, we should get value for money. We can’t keep paying for something that’s un-existing.
And lastly, the issue of the generating plants that has turned into the proverbial white elephant. We, students have paid for the purchase of electricity generating plants to cater for The erratic and unstable power supply in the country. But what do we see when the lights go out? Darkness and heat, unbearable heat just because some people are failing to think or they are simply refusing to think. Simplicita!
They say the issue is about fuelling it, why then do we elect leaders? For the basics of reasons that can be given, they are supposed to fix the problems facing the society, that’s the basic responsibility.
We didn’t put students into the Students’ Union Building to only share GH₵ 12,000 as accommodation allowance, neither did we put them there to only organize SRC week celebrations.
We want them to fix and or manage the problems we face, we want them to speak on behalf of students where necessary that’s why the SRC president is a part of the University Council.
From the above, it’s clear that the student front is in a state of pandemonium. We are in a hades, apocalyptic and a Hellish state that demands that students get to demand what is due them from our leaders. We are not settling for less! Let me inform you that I have copied this letter to all other students and you may as well share ♻ it!
Bye for now.
Your unknown friend,
KWAKU ASANTE