World Bank and AAU Team Visits Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s RWESCK

World Bank, AAU and KNUST Officials

A team of the World Bank and the Association of African Universities (AAU) has visited Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s (KNUST) Regional Water and Environmental Sanitation Centre, Kumasi (RWESCK) to review and verify the activities of the Centre. As part of their visit, the team met stakeholders involved in the project.

Dr. Sampson Oduro Kwarteng, Deputy Leader of RWESCK, briefed the visiting team and explained that the Centre started in 1998 as a waste and sanitation project. It started in partnership with the Netherlands in 1998 and later entered into a collaboration with UNESCO-IHE among others culminating into RWESCK.

He stated that the main objective of the project was to provide a critical mass of human resource in water, food security and sanitation. Dr. Oduro Kwarteng explained that as part of the project, the centre intends to train 40 PhDs, 140 MScs, 88 students on short courses and to secure internships for 270 students. The Centre had three accredited programmes, 40 publications and $1.8 million dollar support from the World Bank.

He continued that female enrollment was 27% currently as against the targeted 30%.The Centre was running PhD and MSc programmes in water resources, water resource management, water resource engineering and engineering. Other courses are water supply treatment technologies, water resources policy among others.

He informed the team that the Centre was officially launched on 15th April, 2016 at a stakeholders’ consultative workshop. He said that one PhD student from the Gambia had been recruited as well as 7 MSc students. Short courses had also been developed to meet the sector’s training needs. The launch also provided opportunities for networking and internships.

In spite of these successes, the deputy centre leader stated that there was no enrollment in 2014 due to late release of funds.

Professor Samuel Nii Odai, in answering a question on laboratory equipment, stated that the University had laboratories in all the Colleges in addition to its central laboratory and laboratories in the research institutions such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research among others.

On the procurement aspects of the project, Mr. Edward Nketiah, the Director of Procurement stated that the procurement plan had been sent to the Public Procurement Authority and all procurement procedures comply with the National Procurement regulations.

The Team advised that there was the need for a periodic procurement audit and for that matter they should engage the services of a procurement consultant. On construction, the Director of Works and Physical Development, Kwadwo Kyeremeh, assured the team that construction work would commence in July, 2016.

The World Bank and AAU delegation, as part of their verification exercise, inspected the site earmarked for the construction of the RWESCK complex. The team members were Prof. Mahamadou Diallo, Himdat Iqbal Bayusuf and Eunice Yaa Brimfah Ackwerh. Earlier they had paid a courtesy call on the Vice-Chancellor.