Government on Monday announced that it has fumigated 678 senior high schools (SHS) out of the nearly 700 public SHS across the country against bed bugs infestation and other harmful insecticides, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister of Information, said.
Addressing a news conference on Monday, to respond to some emerging issues, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said Government completed the exercise just last week, noting that there was no public records indicating comprehensive fumigation of all public senior high schools in recent times.
He refuted recent allegations made by former President John Mahama, suggesting that government was reneging on its responsibility to fumigate public second cycle educational institutions against bed bugs infestation.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah mentioned the number of beneficiary schools across the 10 regions as follows: Ashanti 120, Brong Ahafo 80, Central 70, Eastern 97 and Greater Accra 50.
The rest are Northern 52, Upper East 34, Upper West 21, Volta 100 and Western 54.
The Minister reiterated the Akufo-Addo’s administration commitment to seeing the success of Free SHS programme, saying; “We’ll not leave any stone unturned in achieving this objective”.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah also gave the assurance that government would work towards re-constituting a new council for the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) so that all the interim and emergency measures would be handed over to it to restore normalcy on campus.
He said Government was not interested in deciding which specific individuals were nominated to the new council, but the principle of specific persons who would end up becoming judges in their own courts was what government disagreed with.
He re-affirmed government’s position that individuals who constituted the old KNUST Council ought not to be on the new Council, saying “the old council cannot be judges in their own courts”.
Therefore, he said, the specific persons who constituted the old council cannot preside over the matters in which their own decisions and conduct would be a subject; hence it was in that spirit the Government and some other groups had already indicated new nominees to the new council.
Government closed down the KNUST following the outbreak of violence and destruction of property during student demonstration on campus on October 22.
The impasse between the management and students of KNUST compelled government to intervene with emergency and interim measures to restore normalcy.