…and AFC takes an about-turn on its support for the Amaila Hydro
OLD Kai was at the University of Guyana for the Presidential debate hosted at the George Walcott Lecture Theatre in the lead-up to the 2011 regional and general elections.It was a packed audience, so I stood and listened to the candidates, drenched in perspiration but eager in anticipation. From the independent observer, it was clear that the one who seemed completely at ease was, of course, the man who would go on to win the elections.
He smiled; he poked a bit of fun; and he had a great debate. He did not promise the moon and stars as Granger and Ramjattan did; he simply laid it out as it was, and promised to continue working earnestly with management to improve the overall environment of the University of Guyana. He outlined everything his party has done to provide Guyanese with a university education, and promised that under his Government, there will be a continuation of efforts to raise the profile of the institution.
Let us backtrack a bit here to understand that it was Dr. Cheddi Jagan who first started the initiative of tertiary education during the evenings at the Queens College building. Let us recall also that this plan was ridiculed by the PNC, and they even laughed it off as ‘Jagan’s night school’. Jagan and the PPP had a vision; and several decades later, thousands of our citizens have graduated and gone on to serve our country in several fields, while others have made their mark overseas.
Old Kai has heard the cynics accuse the government of lack of support for UG. This is mere politicking, and, of course, this was the go-to issue for Granger and Ramjattan during the debate. They had no vision to offer, so, typically, they settled into a role of detailing all that was wrong at the University. In their books, there was nothing good happening; nothing positive.
However, while in 2011 we could not fully appreciate the government’s effort to support UG, recent disclosures of the dire fate of Universities in other Caribbean nation’s highlight the difficulties being faced to maintain their operations. A Jamaica Gleaner article on April 7, 2013, headlined ‘Cash crunch grips universities; UWI against the ropes…’ has quoted Dr Carroll Edwards, Director of the marketing and communications office at UWI, as saying that the year “has been financially challenging to the university, due in part to the gap created by reduced funding from the Government.”
The Jamaica Observer, on May 6, 2013, had also reported that students at the UWI Mona Campus in Jamaica will be faced with an increase in tuition fees this year to meet rising costs. A report in Barbados Today, on August 23, 2013, laid bare the suffering of UWI students at the Cave Hill Campus, and it revealed that a growing and worrying number of Barbadian students are turning to their guild for “welfare” assistance.
President of the Guild, Damani Parris was quoted by the article as saying that during the last semester, “there were requests from several students, some of whom were so badly off financially they were asking for bus fare to get to school, and money to buy meals and books.”
The student representative could find no record of Bajans attending the university being in such strife in the past, and feared that if the government went ahead with making these individuals pay their own tuition fees next year (2014), the numbers would surge. UWI in Trinidad also has its fair share of problems.
So now we come to the University of Guyana, where, during the Presidential Debate in the GWLT, President Ramotar alluded to the fact that his Government will continue to aggressively seek funding to improve capacity. True to his word, on March 22, 2014, the media reported that the University awarded eight grants amounting to US$329,000 to teams of UG academic staff, towards research in the area of our Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). The initiative is part of an overall US$10M credit from the World Bank to the Government of Guyana, which will go towards the University.
The President also continued, as in past budgets, to provide funding for the operations of UG, and in 2014, some $1.4B was allocated, representing a 7% increase in funding from 2013. $450M of this amount will go to the University, through its student loan programme administered by the Ministry of Finance.
Sadly, the fate of students accessing these loans for the next semester is up in limbo after it was inexplicably cut from the Budget by the AFC and APNU. The excuse given is that it was lumped together with other projects such as the Amaila Hydropower project, and they had no option but to vote against the entire line. This is hogwash! Complete hogwash!
The public will recall that the AFC had voted in support of the Hydro Project when the APNU abstained and the US developers pulled out because there was not full parliamentary consensus, which was a precondition then. So, if the AFC supported the Hydro Project, why this about-turn now, and the excuse given that the UG loan funds were bunched together with the Amaila Hydro funds? This is the ignorance that passes for politics from an Opposition that Guyanese are saddled with in the 21st Century. They voted in support last year, and now, inexplicably, they voted against it this year. Why are those who are usually vocal about accountability from our leaders are not questioning the AFC on this act of betrayal? This is the party which touted itself as holding the ‘keys’ to the future of Guyana’s youths. The reality is that it has slammed the door in the face of our youths, and used those keys to lock it to deny our students a better future.
These are the same ‘angels’ who stood up before these very students in 2011 and proclaimed that they had UG students’ best interest at ‘heart’. Sadly, our students have now fallen by the wayside, and have become ‘collateral damage’ for the Opposition.
Old Kai knows that President Donald Ramotar and his team will fight against this injustice against our UG students by the Opposition. I am confident that the PPP/C will be successful in overcoming this dreadful attack on our future leaders in this country by the AFC and APNU. Those hundreds, if not thousands, of students who will be affected, as well as the University which will be starved of these funds, need to speak out against this decision by the Opposition.
I am pleased to have read that the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jacob Opadeyi is leading by example. He needs the support of those around him. Where is the usually vociferous Union? Or do they only come out when they want to attack the Government?
Those who choose to remain quiet are in essence supporting the efforts of the AFC and APNU to destroy the University of Guyana, which apparently is their new target.