Committee Set to Probe KNUST Violence to be Inaugurated

Following the disturbances at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) last year, the three-member independent committee which was set up to probe the occurrence is to be inaugurated on Thursday, February 14, 2019.

The committee set up by Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Asantehene and the Chancellor of the University, is being chaired by a Retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Her Ladyship Justice Rose Owusu to investigate the October 22, 2018 campus disturbances.

A statement from the University Relations Office (URO) and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Kumasi, said the event would be held at the KNUST Council Chamber with tight security. 

The Asantehene, addressing this year’s special congregation ceremony of the University, announced the setting up of an independent committee to investigate comprehensively the disturbances.

KNUST, Ghana’s premier science and technology tertiary institution, was in October, last year, closed down temporarily when some aggrieved students decided to go on the rampage, destroying property worth several thousands of Ghana Cedis.

The protest, according to the student body, was in response to what they described as orchestrated and systematic maltreatment meted out to them by the authorities.

In the heat of the impasse, the University Council was dissolved, while some core staff also decided at a point in time to lay down their tools over misunderstanding on reconstitution of the Council.

The Asantehene explained that the committee had been charged to delve deep into the disturbances as they seek to identify the causative factors and also come up with a road map to chart the path for the avoidance of such occurrences in the future.

Credit: Ghana News Agency