Traditional Rulers Advice Gov. Ayade To Privatize CRUTECH

At the Cross River University of Technology (CRUTECH) annual stakeholders forum held on Tuesday right in the Campus in Calabar, the Chairman of the council of traditional rulers in Cross River State, Etinyin Etim Edet has suggested that the Cross River State Government should privatize CRUTECH, over lack of adequate fundings.

 CrossRiverWatch has it that the monarch lamented due to the fact that the state government which created the university, can no longer provide the adequate funds needed to run the school.

 Etinyin Etim Edet said "If government can no longer fund the university, can't we sell it to a private individual who is ready to run this great university ? Can't we reduce the campuses and stop playing politics ? What is the need of running multi-campuses when you can't even fund one ?"

The Governor of Cross River State, Professor Ben Ayade, who was represented by the Commissioner for Education, Godwin Ettah responding to this said "Although the solutions may not be immediate or 100%, I can assure you that the government is not relenting but working hard to address the issues you all raised which is not new to us."

CRUTECH Alumni Association, National President, Eyam Abeng who was represented by the National Secretary, Anthony Sylva gave an appeal "to the state government to set up an Educational Endowment Fund (EEF) which will be used to support CRUTECH and other state owned tertiary institutions. All firms operating in Cross River State should be mandated by law to contribute at least 1% of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)."

The Vice Chancellor of CRUTECH, Professor Owan Enoh had earlier stated that "Before we blame government, we as stakeholders must devise measures to make our students pay school fee."

He added that "A university that cannot even collect school fees has no moral justification to ask government fo anything. So we want stakeholders to empower the management to introduce strategies that will make students comply with fee payment."

As the meeting was about coming to an end, a communique was issued, which grants the management of CRUTECH the permission to publicize in a week to exams, a list of students who have "paid their fees" as the only students qualified to write exams and those who cannot pay before their exams, should have their scripts separated and probably confiscated.