Press Conference On The Late Arrival Of The Students Loan

PRESS CONFERENCE ORGANISED BY THE CONCERNED STUDENTS OF GHANA AT THE FREEDOM CENTER ON THE LATE PAYMENT OF THE STUDENTS LOAN FOR THE 2009/2010 ACADEMIC YEAR AND ITS IMPLICATIONS. DELIVERED BY MR. AUSTIN ATTAH-BRAKO (SPOKESPERSON FOR CSG).

Fellow Students, our friends from the media, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; we are strengthened and energized when we see that truth - that the media is still interested in carrying the conditions and plights of students to our parents and national leaders without any embellishment of the fact.

It is in this light that we the members of The Concerned Students of Ghana would want to demonstrate to our leaders of our disgust for sometime on in relation to the late arrival of the student's loan for the 2009/2010 academic year. This, however, cannot be the first time the loan is arriving late in an academic year; claim could be laid especially to the 2008/2009 academic year among others.

On the 29 September, this year, a petition addressed to the Chairman of the SSNIT Board was written by Austin Brako and Jacob Shamatey both of the University of Ghana, Legon expressing some genuine concerns of students for which The Concerned Students of Ghana is in full support of taking into cognizance the reeking pungent smell of frustration students had to grapple with at the beginning of the semester.

In embracing ourselves with the utilities of the student's loan by students, one will be convinced of our urge to organize this press conference in solidarity with the difficulties students have faced and are still facing on their various campuses. Some students, especially those from parents who earn less than GH¢ 50 a month, use the loan to subsidize their fees which seem to be increasing every academic year.

Others also use the money to purchase study materials among other logistics which the luxury of their parent's wealth and poverty cannot provide for them.

So you see where our frustrations and desire to organize this press conference lies.

In the University of Ghana, Legon it is reported that during the 2008/2009 academic year, over three hundred students had their various fields of studies deferred due largely to their inability to finish the payment of their fees. With regards to the situations on the University of Cape Coast, University of Mines and Technology, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology among others, the conditions of majority of the students may not be any better than worse.

With almost two months to the end of the first semester of the 2009/2010 academic, we can be sure that over three thousand students have deferred their various programs of study due to the lack of funds to subsidize their fees.

By this release, we want to drum to our leaders that, the student loan is not a luxury and a favor that they are granting to students. With the voice of over thirty thousand (30, 000) students all over the country locked in their rooms torn between misery and suicide, we call on SSNIT board and the Attah-Mills-led administration to:

• Facilitate the disbursement of the loan immediately.

• Change the loan operators and even dissolve the SSNIT board if members cannot differentiate between luxury and fierce want since especially the student beneficiaries at the beginning of an academic year find themselves on the threshold of fate and failure, deferment and continuation of their various programs.

• Put a working mechanism that will provide an alternative avenue for making available the loan to students in the brink of delay.

• See to the restructuring of the money under distribution since room has not been made for emergencies. In other words, the current GH¢ 190 for students offering courses in the Humanities and GH¢210 for students in the Sciences for a semester is just meager and structurally flawed since it makes no room for future developments in relation to the increment of tuition fees of our various tertiary institutions.

We are with expectant breath waiting for befitting response from the appropriate quarters. In the event of inaction, we the students will rally our numbers and take action for our leaders which we see as our intellectual responsibility not to be compromised.

On this note, we thank you-our friends from the media and our brothers and sisters in whose frustrations we sit here today to demonstrate vividly to the entire citizenry of this country.

Thank you everyone and we hope you will respond the next time we call on you.