FINANCE Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, on Thursday, through a $4.6B financial paper, restored $225M to the University of Guyana’s student loan fund; however it only represented half the originally allocated sum of $450M was returned.The loan subvention, which was provided for under the Loan Agency of the Ministry of Finance, was cut from the 2014 budgetary estimates by the combined Opposition; the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC).
The listed expenditures according to the financial paper, the first for 2014, are to be utilised for the payment of additional stipend and tuition fees for Government of Guyana-sponsored students.
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Professor Jacob Opadeyi, in a recent interview, had noted that if the loan subvention for the University of Guyana is not restored by the National Assembly then the students would be placed in a dire situation as a result of the severe crisis being ensued at the tertiary institution if the decision to cut the subvention was not reversed.
The VC, at the time, was hinting at the inevitable increase to student tuition, which was compounded by the failure by the National Assembly to provide student loans for current and prospective students who were not in the best of financial circumstances to afford their tertiary education.
The University of Guyana Senior-Staff Association (UGSSA), in a battle with the UG administration, had asserted that the governing body of the University must devise a plan which will see the restoration of the $450M student loan subvention thus offsetting the looming call for the increase in tuition.
President of the UGSSA Dr. Patsy Francis had urged that the UG administration as well as the council of the University, to which the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jacob Opadeyi is an integral member, ought to lobby the relevant Politicians to have provisions made for supplementary funding to the Ministry of Finance’s Loan Agency in order to curtail the impasse that is looming.
The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU)/Alliance for Change (AFC) combined parliamentary Opposition, in the Committee of Supply of the National Assembly during the 2014 budget debates, voted against funding for several Ministry of Finance programmes, including the $450M allocated to the University for student loans.
Over the years, a vast majority of the student population at the country’s premier tertiary institution has benefited from student loans and a large percentage of prospective and current tertiary-level students depend on said loan in order to assist in furthering themselves to make substantial contributions which are integral to the country’s development.

(Derwayne Wills)