The management of Bolgatanga Technical University (BTU) in the Upper East Region has asked the public to disregard a social media write-up by one of its lecturers that seeks to damage the image of the institution.
The write-up which is captioned “Protest against the appointment of Associate Professor Samuel E Alnaa as a Vice-Chancellor of Bolgatanga Technical University” and authored by Dr. Emmanuel Akanpaadgi, a lecturer, questioned how the Vice-Chancellor was selected to head the University.
Dr Akanpaadgi in his write-up indicated that after the conversion of the institution from a Polytechnic to a Technical University in April 2020, it was expected from senior members to introduce new management to the institution to help fulfill its mandate.
“However, shortly after the draft statutes were approved; the Council went ahead to advertise key/principal positions even before the Search Committee(s) and other committees of the University such as convocation and the academic board were reconstituted. The advertisement of key positions was initially supposed to be done by the Search Committee but was usurped by the Council but when its attention was drawn to the transgression; the Council immediately convened an emergency meeting and amended the statutes to allow the Council to perform that function initialing reserved for the Search Committee with retrospective effect. Because the Council has limited time left, coupled with the issues enumerated above; the Local Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG) became suspicious about the genuineness of the intention of the Council. The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) was therefore petitioned to intervene and ensure sanity. The GTEC responded by advising TUTAG to cooperate with the Council and also advised the Council to act per the Technical Universities Act(s) and the statutes of the University. The Interim Vice Chancellor who should have been asked to take his annual leave was allowed to superintend over the selection of members to the Search Committee(s) and he exploited the situation to his advantage. Despite all these, the Search Committee did not find Assoc. Prof. Samuel Erasmus Alnaa suitable, since Prof. Godwin Awabil; a full Professor with rich and extensive experience in academia emerged as the candidate with the highest score. The senior members found the decision of the University Council to appoint Assoc. Prof. Alnaa; whose performance at the interview and as Rector unsatisfactory; as Vice-Chancellor untenable and not in the best interest of the institution. This situation has generated a lot of anxiety among the senior members which needs urgent intervention from the powers that be to avoid the disruption of academic work on campus.”
But reacting to Dr. Akanpaadgi’s write-up at a press conference, the interim registrar, Zangu-Raana Ibrahim Yakubu said the author put out the publication for his selfish.
Touching on the processes leading to the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Samuel Alnaa, and five other key officers, Zangu-Raana noted that they followed the University Council’s guidelines.
He said, “The appointment as per the technical Universities Act, 2016 act 922 as amended and the new Statutes of the University. The position of the Vice-Chancellor and other five key officers that are the Registrar, Director of Finance, Director of Internal Audit, Director of Works and Physical Development and the Librarian were all advertised on the national newspapers.”
He explained further that the advert invited applications from persons with the requisite qualifications and experience.
Zangu-Raana said, “Management received the applications and submitted same to the Search Committees that were tasked by the Council to superintend over the appointment of the key officers aforementioned. Council received the reports from the Search Committees, convened a meeting on 19th March 2021 where each report and its recommendations were considered.”
The registrar added that “Convocation stands by the decision of the council as it finds the purported write-up by self-acclaimed Dr. Emmanuel Akanpaadji as unfounded, malicious and urge the public to disregard it.”
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Moses Apiah|Ghana
