The facts about Freddie Kissoon’s termination

Jan 26, 2012 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,
This letter is a response to the Kaieteur News reporting on the areas and “facts” surrounding my dismissal from UG by the UG Council. There must be, for journalistic purposes, a distinction between the University and the University Council. KN said “University terminates.” Stabroek News wrote, “University Council fires.” I hope readers see the point.
The Kaieteur News in its reporting on the matter seems to be quoting sources at UG and strangely those sources are not speaking to other media houses. What is the explanation? This writer believes that KN’s sources are not UG employees and UG administrators but PPP Council members representing various arms of the Government.
The most egregious manifestation of bad reporting was KN’s statements that some lectures had contracts without the Appointments Committee (AC)’s approval and when it was known the AC tried to correct it, it was in the middle of the semester, so they didn’t bother.
This is completely false and no one from the Appointments Committee could have told KN this. This writer knows that such misinformation was transmitted to KN by PPP Council members. Let me repeat for emphasis. The Appointments Committee never issued a statement on or had a meeting about lecturers who had contracts that were not approved. The Head of the Appointments Committee is the Vice Chancellor (VC).
Since the University started in 1963, the VC acts on behalf of the AC. In law and in actuality, what this means is that a Head is authorized to transact business on behalf of an organization.
When a Minister puts his/her signature on a document, the Ministry itself has acted because the Minister is empowered to perform duties on behalf of the organization. This is standard management practice around the world.
No one in the AC can tell KN that the AC acted without authority. The AC is the Vice Chancellor.
The Council is a policy-making body. It meets every three months. I was a legal member of the Council until my dismissal. Commonsense can tell anyone (maybe except the people to whom KN speaks) that in September when UG opens, unless applicants are received and employed to teach, then UG will not have running programmes, since the University will have to wait for the Council to meet.
This is not the way any university is run.
In order to get rid of me, the Council informed the Vice Chancellor that he should not have acted on behalf of the Council in awarding contracts and wants them terminated.
At that meeting in October last year, he told the PPP members on the Council that he has followed the tradition at UG. He refused to terminate the contracts. The meeting ended because the VC refused to do what.
Two Wednesdays ago, the PPP Council members came back with the same argument. This time, they themselves terminated the contracts. I was the only one not allowed to be reemployed.
The KN barefacedly mentioned other lecturers were fired but cannot name at least one of them. Of course, KN would be opening itself to legal trouble if it names a lecturer that was fired and he/she wasn’t. Lecturers had their contracts terminated with the specific instructions that they can be reemployed. The only exception was me.
The meeting instructed the University not to reemploy me.
In its reporting, KN fails to mention who it is speaking to. Strange that the very administrators that are speaking to KN are not speaking to Stabroek News and Demerara Waves. This makes no sense.
The same way they told KN that the AC acted wrongly, why can’t they tell SN that. KN has quoted no names at UG. SN has.
Mr. O’Neil Greaves, my Dean, told SN what the Council said – I was not performing. It would be useful for KN to get a quote from a named source the way SN did.
The truth of the matter is that none of the administrators at UG have spoken to KN. The reporting by the KN is done after communication with the PPP members on Council.
This may be KN’s way of trying to obfuscate the real reason for my contract termination.   But I think most Guyanese cannot be fooled by such conspiratorial reporting.
I close with the unambiguous statement that no one from any quarter at UG has complained about my performance and there has been no complaint against me taken to the Council by any section of the University.
Kaieteur News can go on to rely on its friends in the government. It would be interesting to hear what those friends have to say to KN on the intended dismissal of the Registrar, Vincent Alexander, and the Council’s rejection of the VC’s offer to remain until a new Vice Chancellor is found.
Finally, it has to be incompetence on the part of the particular journalist to write that Kissoon was not properly employed and in the same article states that I was terminated based on the nature of my contract. The UG Council, then, is paying me based on a non-existent contract. Surely, a competent journalist would have asked his/her source the following; “Well if he was not properly employed then who issued him with a contract; and can that contract be recognized?”
I close by reiterating that the opposition should not let the PPP Government continue in its old fascist ways.
Frederick Kissoon

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