NUGS Officials Defer Courses to Wash Plates

As the allegation of financial malpractices in the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) lingers, the Central Committee of the Union has called on the Executive Committee to impeach certain members of the executive who have absconded.

Painstaking investigations conducted by The Weekend Heritage have revealed that three Key Executive Members of NUGS have abandoned their posts and education and are now seeking greener pastures washing plates abroad.

They are Kotomah Issahaku (GETFund Representative), Mutari Adams (Finance Controller) and Divine K. Vulley (Treasurer) who reportedly tendered in their resignations in transit.

The Weekend Heritage gathered that all the three travelled out in the name of the Executive Committee of the union but refused to return into the country as they regarded their departure from the country on official NUGS business as too golden an opportunity to miss. They therefore resolved to defer their courses back home and instead do such menial jobs like sweeping and washing plates in Britain and the USA.

According to our investigations the trio are not the only NUGS officials who had taken advantage of their positions as executive members to travel outside the country and refused to come back.

There have been a host of others, The Weekend Heritage gathered, and that the situation is motivating the new bread of students to halt the situation before it got out of hand.

Some students interviewed by The Weekend Heritage did not mince words. Full of anger, they vowed that they would use all available means to bring the run-away students back into the country to render proper account, audited by the Auditor Generals Department, before being permitted to return to their new places of abode.

One question troubles the minds of the Central Committee members, The Heritage gathered: "Why did the three top NUGS financial officers choose to resign at this crucial point in time that the Union is bedevilled with corruption and is being labelled as opposition-controlled?"

Or could it be, as being rumoured in certain circles within the Union, that the members were not happy with the kind of pressure the union has been putting on the government on the issue of the GETFund arrears?

When The Weekend Heritage contacted Edward Kofi Amane Boamah, President of NUGS, he confirmed the resignation of the members.

He expressed his full support for the call for impeachment of his colleagues by members.

According to him, out of the members of the Union elected two years ago, only five of them are actively working for the Union.

He disclosed that just three months after his executive assumed office, four of the tendered in their resignation when they got the opportunity to travel outside the country.

"As a President I never travelled outside the country, not even Togo though I had numerous of opportunities to travel, and I think that student leaders should make sure that they serve the people who elected them rather than leaving the country unceremoniously", he bemoaned.

Meanwhile, a planned handing over ceremony to usher in new executive for the 2003-2004 administrative year has been called off due to pressure from the members who insist that the Central Committee submit its report for acceptance or rejection and thereafter the dissolution of the committee before any handing over could take place.

The programme, which was scheduled to start at 8.am had to be delayed for over five hours to allow tempers to cool down before the start of the programme.

Later in the day, however, the programme was rescheduled for a different date for the Central Committee to deliberate on the impeachment of the executive members who had resigned.