Sunyani Technical University Loses 35 Acres to Encroachers, Land Guards Threaten Staff and Students
Photo credit- Sunyani Technical University
Accra, Ghana —The Sunyani Technical University (STU) is battling to recover and protect about 35 acres of its land that have been encroached upon by unidentified developers allegedly working with land guards.
Appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday, Vice-Chancellor Ing. Prof. Kwadwo Adinkrah-Appiah disclosed that the university has been unable to reclaim the encroached area despite repeated interventions, with encroachers now violently preventing officials from accessing the property.
“Anytime we try to build a fence wall, it is demolished,” Prof. Adinkrah-Appiah told the committee.
“We even placed metal containers there to mark our presence, those containers remain, but the land around them has been sold. When you approach the area, land guards brandish machetes and threaten staff and students. It’s become extremely dangerous.”
According to the Vice-Chancellor, the university is facing 11 separate court cases after a woman, claiming to represent the family that originally owned the land, demanded compensation from the institution. Following her demand, groups began constructing on the disputed 35-acre plot under the protection of armed guards.
The university’s total land size stands at 163 acres, meaning nearly a quarter of its estate is now under dispute or encroachment. “We are in court, but the intimidation is escalating,” Prof. Adinkrah-Appiah said. “We are calling on government to step in before we lose the land completely.”
PAC Chairperson Abena Dapaah Asare condemned the attacks on university officials and urged immediate coordination between the Bono Regional Security Council (REGSEC), the Ministry of Education, and local authorities to resolve the matter. “This is not an issue school officials can tackle alone. The regional and district security structures must step in,” she said. “Universities are national assets. Protecting them is a national duty.”
Committee members also advised the university to strengthen its physical presence on the land by developing and fencing available portions once court rulings permit.
The land dispute surfaced during a wider PAC review of public university audit reports, which also exposed financial infractions across other institutions. The University of Education, Winneba was cited for ₵28 million in unsupported honorarium payments. Koforidua Technical University was queried for ₵37 million paid for stalled projects since 2019. Tamale Technical University, however, was commended for being the only institution with a clean audit report and for addressing previous irregularities.
The committee also noted that similar encroachment challenges have been raised by other technical universities in the Bono and Ashanti regions, where weak land documentation and slow legal systems have exposed public campuses to private developers.
Land encroachment remains a persistent challenge for public tertiary institutions across Ghana.
Education experts warn that without urgent government intervention, public lands reserved for future academic expansion risk being lost permanently, undermining the country’s long-term tertiary education plans.
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