Comatose UG and the final solution to its unresolved problems

Mar 28, 2015 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,  
It is unfortunate, but understandable, that the trade unions found it necessary to take over five weeks of industrial action at the University of Guyana before the authorities condescended to an interim 10% increase, pending the outcome of current negotiations for increased salaries/wages and improved conditions of service.
This work stoppage could have been avoided, as the unions had sought the same interim payment prior to strike action, but this did not find favour with the administration. As a consequence, the students suffered immensely, the employees lost much needed income, foreign students were burdened with additional expenses and the image of the University has been severely tarnished by adverse criticism. What price folly!
Unfortunately, the Ministry of Labour must take some blame for its callous approach in this matter. In my time at the Ministry during the turbulent sixties we did not wait for an invitation from either side to get involved in a dispute. We were very proactive as we took the ‘bull by the horns’ and got involved.
But then you had unquestionable competency in the form of a well trained and experienced Labour Administration and Inspectorate headed by men like Fred Taharally, E.A. Richards, Richard Chung, Sunny Dyal, Compton Singh, Fred Lyttle and the list goes on.
As comparisons are very often odious, I prefer not to compare then with now, except to comment that the Labour Department has now become a toothless poodle and virtually irrelevant in the twenty-first century if it is content to be a reactive rather than a proactive body.
The situation at the University of Guyana is like a malignant cancer that warrants laser treatment. It is beyond imagination that a so-called caring Government could treat so callously its premier institution of learning which so many of us attended in its embryonic stages at its former location at Queens College.
But this seems to be the pattern of treatment of anything connected to the late President Forbes Burnham as is evidenced by the parlous state of President’s College; the abolition of National Service which absorbed and trained young people for the job market; the closures of the Guyana National Cooperative Bank which provided easy financing for the small man, the Guyana Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank which provided ready financing for small farmers, the Guyana Co-operative Mortgage Finance Bank which gave ordinary citizens mortgages at low interest rates and easy collateral, and many others far too numerous to chronicle.
As the present administration is beyond trust because of greed, corruption, nepotism, spite and hate, it will certainly be left to a brand new administration to bring about a very necessary attitudinal metamorphosis at the University through partnerships with both the Private and Public sectors which benefit directly from the University through recruitment of its graduates.
In this regard, it is recommended that a special Higher Educational Tax or Levy be attached to the larger Corporate Business entities for a minimum period of 10 years to ensure its orderly rejuvenation and growth under the aegis of an autonomous Corporate Body comprising the Private Sector, the Public Sector, Civic Society and distinguished local and diaspora academia.
In my considered opinion, the several Gold Mining Companies, the Bauxite Mining companies, the Commercial Banks, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, the Guyana Forestry Commission, the Timber Companies, the Commercial Enterprises and many others should be made to pay an annual tax or a levy of between 5% and 10% of anticipated gross revenue.
Simultaneously, the University in turn must put the highest priority on programmes that properly outfit students for placement in the specialised areas aforementioned and de-emphasise the plethora of unnecessary programmes that do not substantially meet the needs of a developing Guyana. Revenue from the proposed tax or levy should realize in excess of $5 billion annually, which should adequately take care of the University’s needs.
Perhaps our technical institutes, which should be more appropriately reclassified as polytechnics, should also stand to benefit from this largesse, as they feed the university with graduates for higher learning. We need a variety of skills in this globalised era to satisfy the future demands of industrialization as the Asian Tigers like Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Indonesia did before their ‘take off’ period.
Finally, it is indeed amazing that the current government could find funds to build and furnish an untimely Marriott Hotel, presumably to drive local hotels out of business; erect a white elephant Skeldon Sugar Factory when the upgrade and modernization of the better located Port Mourant/Albion Factory that has the capacity for and does produce in excess of 25,000 tons per crop could have produced double that amount. Then there are substantial sums expended on the fibre optic cable from Brazil which is faulty and exposed to easy damage, theft and sabotage alongside the Linden-Lethem trail.
Again, what price political folly while the University of Guyana remains languishing in a comatose state, terminally ill for want of urgent laser therapy in the form of money.
R.O. Bostwick

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