University of Calabar Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Florence Obi, has lamented the high rate of abandoned projects in the institution and promised to complete them before starting new ones.
The VC spoke to newsmen while inspecting the ongoing remodelling, completion of abandoned projects and commissioning of a female hostel to mark her first anniversary in office on Wednesday.
Prof Obi said that the institution has a bad record of being one of the universities with the highest number of Federal Government funded abandoned projects in the country.
She mentioned some of the abandoned building projects to include Pavilion One, Two, and Three, now funded by TETFUND, and the Faculty of Law, currently at the verge of completion. The projects were started many years ago but left uncompleted by previous administrations.
She said, “One year of our administration in office, how we have been able to do this is just by the grace of God and I want to say thank you to TETFUND for their support.
“UNICAL has a bad record of being one of the universities with the highest number of Federal Government funded abandoned projects but we are going to change that tide if God willing. We will not want to leave abandoned projects in the university.
“What you just saw is the abandoned Law Faculty project, work is ongoing and we are very sure that in the next few weeks, ground and first floor will be ready for staff to move in and when we have more money, the second and third floor will be completed.
“With the support of TETFUND, the university is remodelling Pavilion One with two classrooms of 150 student-capacity and the two others with 300 student-capacity to meet the modern trend.”
The VC, however, assured that her administration would make sure abandoned projects are completed before constructing new ones.
“We want to graciously thank the federal government because that is actually a capital project and we are applying a capital fund as meagre as they are. We are utilising them well to see that the job is done.
“We don’t want to start new projects when we have a lot of abandoned projects everywhere, administration continues so we are going to make sure we complete the abandoned ones before we move on to starting new ones,” she said.