UDS Business and Law students forced to pay compulsory levy fee for school building

c (UDS) was established in 1992 by the Government of Ghana to portmanteau the academic world with that of the community to provide constructive interaction between the two for total development of Northern Ghana in particular and the country as a whole.

The university has four main campuses namely Tamale campus, Navrongo campus, Nyanpkala campus and Wa campus. The school of Business and Law of the university is located at Wa campus.

Students of the School of Business and Law were served with a shocking notice one week to the re- opening date by the Dean of Students of school of Business and Law, mandating all students from Level hundreds to Four hundreds to make a payment of Gh¢100.00 to SG Bank in WA for construction of a lecture hall.

According to the Dean, he met with the course representatives of the various programs under the school of Business and Law where agreement were reached for the payment. Speaking to the various course representatives, none of their meetings with the Dean had that agenda but the Dean insist, he spoke to the reps before vacation when approached by some students.

An article released by the Dean after his stakeholders meeting in Tamale categorically stated, he met the course representatives where agreement were reached. In this regard, the Dean in the stakeholders meeting, provided a false information about the course representatives and also to the students that approached him for details. Below is the statement by the Dean.

"Dear all,
School of Business and Law intends to build a faculty complex which it has identified many sources of funding including each student of the school right from level 100 to 400 paying GHC100 per academic year beginning in September 2017/18 academic year to complement the other sources of funds for the project. The levy and payment arrangements were duly discussed and approved with all the required stakeholders during the last fees negotiation team in Tamale on the 5th of May 2017. The advantages for this project include but not limited to the following:

1. It will provide lecture room spaces to avoid the current situation where over 900 students sit in one class for a lecture.
2. It will improve quality since over crowding seriously undermine the quality standards we aspire to provide to our students.
3.The project includes modern IT Library and Computer laboratory to enhance teaching and learning.
4.Lecturers will be provided with offices and this in no doubt will improve quality of both research, teaching and learning in the school and the university at large.

Bearing the above reasons, we proposed to undertake the project and as well decided for now that the money is paid into the Faculty account. Therefore every student needs to show evidence of the Development Levy payment with SBL receipts duly issued when they are going through the verification process of their registration.
The levy should be paid into:
A/C: Name: School of Business and Law
A/c number: 600005874358
SG, WA
I call on all stakeholders in this regard to help us make this exercise a success.

Thank you all and may God help us.

Yakubu Awudu Sare
Senior Lecturer and Dean
School of Business and Law
University for Development Studies
Wa Campus"

Many students have been denied the access to register after payment of school fees, Students Representative Council "SRC" dues, Business Students Association "BUSA" Dues and Hall affiliation fee for failure to make the compulsory development levy payment for the school building. To some students, money is hard to come by whiles some students are of the view that the School want to find some way of taken that money and so they are not mandated to build a lecture hall for a university that were built by the government. They are therefore pleading to the government and other stakeholders to help the school with the said LECTURE HALL by the Dean to ease the burden on their parents.