Court’s decision on UEW Vice Chancellor mocked

A judgment by the High Court in Winneba, which found the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education (UEW), Professor Mawutor Avoke, and the school’s Finance Officer, Dr. Theophilus Senyo Akorli, guilty of procurement and other financial irregularities has been ridiculed.

Dr. Samuel Ofori Bekoe, a former president of the UEW chapter of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), also cited the high court for acting “prejudicially”.

The university was dragged to court by one Supi kofi Kwayera who said the Vice Chancellor and the Finance Officer were operating under the institution’s defunct Governing Council. It awarded GHc 8,000 in damages against the University.

But Dr. Ofori Bekoe speaking to 3FM News on Friday, was surprised the judge would come to such a conclusion without averting the mind to a pending case at the Supreme Court challenging the suspension of the two and four others by the University.

He wondered what would be the effect of the high court’s decision, should the superior court decide in favour of UTAG-UEW who took the matter up.

In its judgment on Thursday, the court also ordered the retrieval of all monies paid to the contractors that worked on the North Campus roads and a forensic audit of the project.

This decision by the High Court in Winneba is “laughable”, Dr. Samuel Ofori Bekoe asserted. According to him, the award of the contract predates the tenure of the Vice Chancellor Prof. Avoke.

In any case, he is at a loss how the North Campus roads is related to the substantive case of the VC serving under a defunct council.

He explained that the roads in question started during the administration of the former Vice Chancellor Prof. Akwasi Asabere-Ameyaw.