By Gifty Arthur

The Rector of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), Mr. David Newton, has hinted The Herald that work on the abandoned project at Dzorwulu in Accra, is to resume soon. For years, work on the building has been at standstill because government has found it challenging to source for funds to complete it.

Currently, weeds have taken over a better part of the land which a portion of it has been used for gardening.

The building which started many years ago, when completed, would absorb both the diploma and degree students.

The school is currently located at Ridge, adjacent the British High Commission in Accra. it was established by the late President Kwame Nkrumah more than 50 years ago and moved to its present site in 1965 from the premises of Accra Polytechnic where it was housed.

The Director of the school then was Mr. J.W Smith, a West Indian, who was replaced in 1966 after the coup by late veteran journalist Sam Arthur, former editor of Ashanti Pioneer.

Since then, the school had seen very little infrastructural development because of lack of serious attention by successive governments.

Despite its limited resources and scarce infrastructure, the school has over the decades, produced journalists of substance who have excelled and distinguished themselves in their various disciplines.

Until a few years ago when the school was upgraded to the status of tertiary institution, it was under the Ministry of Information which he claimed did not see the development of GIJ as a priority.

Fortunately, after it was brought to its current status, and under the Ministry of Education in 2007, the school, through the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GET fund), was allocated GH¢600.000 in March this year.

He was optimistic that any moment from now construction works would on the projects commence.

He said the basement of the building has been completed whilst the first floor is yet to be completed. When this is done, the degree students would be moved in first whilst work on the rest of the project would continue.

“Work on the basement is completed except the fittings; the first floor has to be complete. When we finish with the first floor, we would start using the facility whilst they continue with subsequent floors”, he said.

Considering the amount of money that is allocated yearly to the school by GET fund since 2008, he was hopeful that within five years, work on the building should have been fully completed, for the next group to move in so that the school could start other infrastructural development on the huge land.

Mr. Newton hinted that plans are far advanced for external support from a Chinese firm and other countries through the assistance of the Ministry of Education who has assured the school that as soon as the firm finishes with the necessary negotiations, the ministry would give the school the go ahead to start some of the works.

“We were also trying to source external funding through the Ministry of Education through the previous minister.

“We have contacts with some Chinese financiers and other countries, and we have discussed with the current minister, and they have all assured us that as soon as they get positive response from them, government would take over”, he said.

When completed, he said, the ultra-modern facility would include an administration block, lecture halls, students hostel and auditoriums. Others are business plaza, business centre, multimedia centre, television and radio stations, printing division, ITC centre, a laboratory and faculty of Modern Languages.

He said when these facilities are established, the school would then becomes a full blown university where other faculties such as Social, Management, Administration, Business, Languages , ICT and others would be studied, beside the current Journalism, PR and Advertising course being offered.