GTEC freezes UCC requests Over VC Tenure Dispute

The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has hit the University of Cape Coast (UCC) with sweeping sanctions, suspending the processing of all major requests until the institution enforces its directive on the tenure of Vice-Chancellor, Professor Johnson Nyarko Boampong.

In a letter dated Monday, September 22, 2025, and addressed to the Registrar of UCC, GTEC said the action was necessitated by the university’s defiance of both a court injunction and the Commission’s directives. The Governing Council of UCC has been under a High Court restraint since October 8, 2024, barring it from taking any decision on Prof. Boampong’s appointment, yet the embattled Vice-Chancellor remains in office beyond the mandatory retirement age.

The Commission declared that it would no longer handle UCC’s requests relating to accreditation, government subventions, GETFund support, book and research allowances, post-retirement contracts, financial clearance for recruitment, or “any other related matters.”

The directive, signed by Prof. Augustine Ocloo, Acting Deputy Director-General of GTEC, warned that the suspension “takes immediate effect and will remain until there is full compliance with the directive and evidence of compliance is furnished to the Commission.”

Checks by Citi Newsroom on GTEC’s official website further revealed that UCC had been removed from the list of public universities, effectively suggesting that the institution “does not exist.”

The sanctions follow an earlier letter from GTEC dated Friday, September 19, 2025, in which Prof. Boampong was ordered to vacate his office. The Commission wrote:

“The Office of the Vice-Chancellor, being an office established under Section 7(1) of the University of Cape Coast Act, 1992 (PNDCL 278), is a public office under the meaning and intendment of Article 199(1). Hence, anyone acting in the office of the Vice-Chancellor is presumptively mandated to proceed on compulsory retirement upon attaining 60 years.”

GTEC also reminded UCC of its own Statutes (2016), which stipulate that the Vice-Chancellor serves a four-year term, renewable for another three years, provided the statutory retirement age is not exceeded.

In the meantime, GTEC has directed the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Denis Worlanyo Aheto, to assume office as acting Vice-Chancellor.

While acknowledging that the matter is before the Cape Coast High Court, the Commission has ordered UCC’s Governing Council to suspend the appointment of a substantive Vice-Chancellor until the legal dispute is fully resolved.