UDS STUDENTS COMPLAIN ABOUT HIGH RENTS IN WA (PAGE 17)

SOME students in the Wa Municipality, particularly fresh students of the Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS), have expressed worry over the high rents being charged by landlords.
The students said apart from the fact that the amounts being charged by these homeowners were exorbitant, the rooms are small.
They said a number of them had to contribute and pay the rent of single rooms occupied by four students, which had increased from GH¢150 to GH¢250 for a year, while rooms occupied by two students go for between GH¢200 and GH¢300 per year.
Investigations by the Daily Graphic showed that the action of the landlords had become an annual ritual, as they saw the period between August and September as their ‘cocoa season’.
The students expressed regret about the attitude of the landlords and said they behaved as if their survival depended only on the high rent charges, and, therefore, did not show any sympathy for the students.
A fresh student from Accra, Akwasi Odobeng, lamented how he had to struggle to get a small room at a cost of GH¢280. “Since I was desperate, two other mates who had also gained admission to the university and I had to contribute to pay in order to have a place to lay our heads,” he told the Daily Graphic.
Mr Odobeng, therefore, appealed to the university authorities to institute positive measures to address the issue of residential accommodation facing students of the Wa campus, since it had the highest number of students among the three campuses which constituted that university.
Another student, Hilda Mwin, also expressed similar sentiments and appealed to the Upper West Regional Coordinating Council to impress upon the landlords to treat the students as ‘their children, brothers and sisters’.
When contacted, the President of the Students Representative Council (SRC) of the Wa campus of the UDS, Mr A. A. Iddi, said the SRC had stepped in to negotiate with landlords on behalf of students to get them to reduce the rent for the fresh students.
Another source also told the Daily Graphic that efforts were being made by the university authorities to see how best to resolve the issue.