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Many years after tracts of land belonging to Ghana’s only school of survey and mapping was sold to Nestle Ghana Limited, another part has been earmarked for the construction of an ultra-modern shopping mall, after the completion of a contractual agreement with the Lands Commission and  ADK Consortium, an engineering company.

There are about 500 students currently going through training at the school of survey and mapping, with five (5) classrooms and seven (7) offices, but the move to put up the Shopping Mall will break off all buildings, leaving just two classrooms and a library, the New Crusading GUIDE has gathered.

 Already, the school, taking fees of about GH¢2, 500 yearly from each student, has over the past years been facing challenges of renewing its accreditation with the NABTEX, and if the demolition is done, may threaten its chances of getting it renewed.

Consequently, students from the school and other stakeholders yesterday stormed the Lands Commission’s office in Accra to protest vehemently against the move.

“Mahama Government to breakdown a university to build shopping Mall? Posterity will judge us and history will never forget this, if Government of Ghana will destroy Ghana’s education to the extent of breaking down a university for self seeking businessmen to build a shopping Mall. Today it is GSSM, tomorrow it will be another school, Mahama promised us quality education but now he is moving to no education, we the students of Ghana will not allow the Mahama Government to break down our school and sell our lands to private investors”, one of the irate students averred yesterday in an interview .

But  Mr. Oppong Antwi, the Deputy Director of Administration and Finance when contacted declined to comment on the issue, Mr. Jones Odame, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, addressing the angry students said they were aware the school was located on the said land, “and we are aware the school is accredited, so there is no way we will do anything to destroy it. We have already told you that we have made necessary arrangements to make sure we do not interrupt with the school’s activities”.

He continued: “We know there is a building there, that building is a colonial building, it was constructed by Guggisberg, and it has two classrooms with one library. There is some information that that building is going to be demolished, that is not true, that building we recognize it as a colonial building, it is a national heritage, it was built by Guggisberg so under no circumstance are we going to destroy it. So as for that one you are secured of your two classrooms and a library. What we are going to do is that when construction starts, hopefully it should start in the first or second week of January, when we are finally done with the procurement and finalizing the contract”.

According to Mr. Odame, when construction begins in January for Shopping Mall and a headquarters for the Lands Commission, students would be added on to a sister institution where a similar course is ran in order not to interfere with construction works.

Although he could not pinpoint the exact sister school they had arranged to take-in the students, Mr. Odame further allayed fears that the Lands Commission had arranged to put up a structure within the Commission’s premises, within the next 15 months, where the entire school would be relocated.