The Vice Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress’ UK/ Ireland branch, Kwame Agbodza has described as ‘serious business’ government’s decision to establish two new public universities in the Volta and Brong Ahafo regions. According to him, the establishment of the two universities is borne out of the desire of the Mills-led administration to meet the needs of Ghanaians in the areas of health care and environment, science and technology. President Mills in February 2011 cut the sod for construction works to begin on the University of Allied Health Sciences in the Volta region and the University of Energy and Natural Resources in the Brong Ahafo region. Although some structures have been completed for use by the universities, concerns have been raised by residents of the Volta region in particular and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) over how committed government is to the university project. But speaking on Majority Caucus, a political talk show on Joy News TV on Multi TV, Mr. Agbodza intimated that “it is quite wrong for people to think that somebody out there is about to take people for granted. This is serious business.” “If you think of it this way, there is no society which can develop or redeem itself from the quagmire of poverty without the provision or production of requisite knowledge” he said. He added that the setting up of the two universities “is not just a campaign promise, it is a need for this country to produce high level of people that can address the needs of our people in both health care and environment and science and technology.” According to him, the NPP’s criticisms of the university project smacks of “jealousy” especially since the NPP and the UP tradition as a whole have failed to put up even a single public university for the country. “Unless you don’t want to develop, that is where you can mess up with education, not just education but high level education” he said in response to the NPP’s criticisms.