368 Pupils of Atampuurum B primary school in Sumbrungu of Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly of the Upper East Region risk their lives day by day learning in an environment that could be described as a death trap.
According to the information gathered by Apexnewsgh.com, the school has been operating without doors, windows, and even with an open roof since after the roof was ripped off by rainstorm years ago. These are the conditions innocent pupils of Atampuurum B primary are faced for the past years and Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly has had different faces as MCEs without giving any attention to the school to date.
I was told, whenever is threatening to rain, teachers will have no other option than to pupils ask the children to go back home, which means the children are learning under the outrageous squelching sun each day.
Community members have been doing their little best assisting the abandoned school in one way or the other but unfortunately, the municipal assembly isn’t bothered about the school.
The Sumburungu electoral Area Assemblymember Azure Samuel who expressed dissatisfaction with the school’s current condition said, he contested the Assemblymember position because of the neglected Atampuurum B primary school but unfortunately if he raised the issue during the assembly meeting the MCE will not give him any concrete response.
“The MP Isaac Adongo is aware of the school, I have forwarded messages to him, he didn’t reply, he didn’t say anything about it”. He revealed
“They started building the school since 2007 thereabout, but up to now, the school has not been completed. The windows are not there, the doors are not there, and even the roofing, the wind came and destroy everything and that was the time my brother Robert Awure was there as the assembly member somewhere 2014-2015 he went and informed the MCE and that time, I was a teacher at the school. So, 2016- 2017, we were not hearing anything concerned about that school. So, it was 2018 when some people came and took pictures of the place that they are going to help and we didn’t hear anything from them. Even up to now, that am speaking to you, the school is like that. There is no furniture, the windows are not there, the classrooms are still like that, even there is no office for the teachers. Even common table the teachers didn’t have. It was just recently the community mobilized some monies and buy some plastic chairs. In 2019, I was able to raise some 5 bags of cement and we were able to floor some of the classrooms from Primary 1 to Primary 3”.
“When I went to the Assembly, I was talking about the school and they will not even mind me. They read the action plan, the school wasn’t mentioned and I asked the MCE but he wasn’t even giving any concrete reason for not putting the school there. So, I don’t know the problem of that school as am standing”. He told Apexnewsgh.com
I was there when my brother the former Assemblyman Robert Awuure wrote to the Municipal Assembly and the MCE Amiyuure with the Director came to the school. It was because of that school I decided to contest as Assemblyman and I have regretted because, they sent me there to see what is there as their assembly member and now, I went to assembly and I can’t even speak.
Mr. Akolgo Mathew the headteacher at Atampuurum B Primary school told Apexnewsgh.com that he came and met the school without a window, without doors, without furniture, and even without roofing. “The situation is becoming so bad because the environmental condition is deeply affecting teaching and learning”
He is appealing to authorities, NGOs and well-meaning Citizens to come to their aid.
Meanwhile, the Caretaker MCE for Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly Joseph Amiyuure, admitted not knowing the funding source responsible for Atampuurum B Primary school.
“If it was on Common Fund or once it has been initiated from one of the funding sources and if is on Common Fund, it means is only Common Fund that can rescue that school and one thing about Common Fund is that, before our regime came into office and i became a Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) there are numerous of such projects that was scattered in the Municipality under Common Fund uncompleted. So, we need to know the funding source and if it’s not from Common Fund, we can find a way of working on it because, most of these development partners when they are giving their money, they will want you to use it for a project which will show is their project. They don’t want you to use their money to complete an uncompleted project of Common Fund. And if you look at the Common Fund since we came to office, the quantum of resource that will come is almost clean up. We have never gotten up to 300,000”. He told Apexnewsgh.com
However, the former Assembly member for Sumburungu electoral area Robert Awuure when giving his account about the school said,
“When I took over as assemblyman, I called the contractor and he said unless we came down to Accra and arrange with the GETFund people to give him his money, he cannot come down to continue with the project. And you can imagine that small building, they give it to somebody in Accra to come down to Bolga to build. So, that was the main problem. So, I brought it down to the assembly level to see whether they can fix it in their project, and actually, they agreed and put it in their project but, they were also looking for funding and they were rolling it over and over and over until I myself left the assembly. According to Mr. Awuure, the school was captured in the 2014 to 2019 budget.
However, teachers and community members of Sumburungu are calling for those who matters to give urgent attention to the abandoned school.
Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana/Ngamegbulam Chidozie Stephen
