The Provost of Abia State College of Education Technical Arochukwu, ASCETA, Dr Philips Ntoh has stated his desire to see the institution upgraded to a university.
Dr Ntoh, who disclosed this while interacting with newsmen at his office in Arochukwu, said the state government has submitted the bill which is ongoing at the state house of assembly, while the management has done public hearing on the upgrade of the institution.
The provost frowned that enemies of the institution have been parading fake news that he is erecting sub-standard structures, hence the need to invite the press to see things themselves.
He listed insufficient enrolment as part of their challenges, adding that the state government, under Okezie Ikpeazu is desirous to clear outstanding backlog of salaries.
According to him, the management does not delay salaries once they receive subvention.
On the reason behind the sack of Kevin Egesi and Ifeanyi Ariwodo, Ntoh alleged that the former staff became partisan, redundant to carry out assigned duty, embarrassing him, the provost and the institution in the social media which even drew the attention of the state governor. He added that the sack of the duo is part of the reorientation going on in the institution, noting that more people would join.
His words “nobody will accept or tolerate Kevin Egesi for posting things against the institution and the government paying him”, secondly, I appointed him HOD school of economics, made him (Kevin) chairman committee on students enrollment but he refused to carry out his job, he was not sacked because of salary agitation, but redundancy”.
” I have written to him through my lawyer to apologize to me using the same medium (Facebook) he used to blackmail me and the institution”
While warning staff of ASCETA not to be partisan, Ntoh revealed that he has not received any letter from the national body of the College of Education Academic Staff Union, COEASU which Kevin Egesi was their former chairman in ASCETA before his sack.
Contrary to media speculations about his leadership achievement, Dr Ntoh explained that his administration has completed over fifteen structures both new and renovated ones, with tertiary education trust fund TETFUND through two percent from public tax.
“The house of representatives came to investigate our TETFUND projects and I refused because the money used to execute the projects didn’t come from the federal government”.
Dr Ntoh took the journalists round the school premises to see some of the projects executed by him. Some of them are school of education which can take all the staff and students known as 2019 Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND called high impact intervention, procured five hundred KVA transformer and moved the institution from estimated to prepared metre. He renovated other building projects.
