Operation Rescue UG should demand Compton Bourne’s resignation

Feb 27, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter in the Feb 25th edition of SN by economist, D. Thomas Singh of the University of Guyana. In his capacity as a leading member of Operation Rescue UG, he wrote his missive on the current crisis at UG and some harsh words were composed on the current UG Chancellor, Dr. Compton Bourne.
It is five weeks since the conflict broke out at UG and prior to Dr. Singh’s commentary on Bourne, there is no mention of the role of Compton as the Chancellor and the part he played in that fateful meeting of January 18 when four lecturers had their contract terminated outside of the statutes of the University, and the Council’s decision to ignore the Vice Chancellor’s contract renewal for Registrar Vincent Alexander. I have kept away from manifest visibility in the protest because the focus tended to be on me when in fact some highly qualified lecturers had their work status cancelled. The names include Dr. Patrick Williams, who has a doctorate in Geography and Mr. Lorie Bancroft with a Masters in Customs Administration. There is also the discriminatory treatment against Registrar, Vincent Alexander.
Dr. Bourne has not responded to the correspondence from the three unions and the GTUC. He has kept his distance even though he presided over that Jan 18 meeting. My honest opinion is that Compton Bourne should not have become Chancellor of UG and I call upon Operation Rescue UG to demand his resignation. The first meeting of the Council that Dr. Bourne presided over, he showed that he lacked recognition for some of the sacred values of life, one of which he indignantly rejected. After that, I lost respect for him and never saw him as someone who could contribute to the future of UG.
The issue was the Disciplinary Committee to investigate Technology Lecturer, Mr. Evan Persaud for sexual misconduct in the classroom. I pointed out to Bourne that two persons on the committee were PPP members and Mr. Persaud was a PPP member. I described for him the district groups that these two persons belonged to. Attorney Gino Persaud then told the meeting that he knows that a third person on the panel was also a PPP member. Dr. Bourne refused to acknowledge there was a disturbing conflict of interest and looked straight at me and said; “Are you challenging the integrity of the persons?”
The conflict of interest principle is sacred in this life. It is a safeguard of justice. For Bourne to have acted this way should have automatically disqualified him from continuing as Chancellor. My second disgust was when he argued against raising the retirement age of lecturers from 60 years.
At that time, he had applied for contract renewal at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) at age 66, which meant that had he not lost out he would have ended his CDB stint at 71. I don’t think Dr. Bourne understands the fragility of UG, how it came about and what is needed to save it. Dr. Bourne sits as Chairman of the UG Council and tolerates the worst kind of unprofessional behaviour from PPP Council members who, in terms of educational exposure, should not be on a UG panel much less the Council.
Then there was a third incident that showed graphically the ineligibility of Bourne to sit as Chancellor. He told Gail Teixeira that he couldn’t call a Council meeting in November last year because the British Government had invited him to assess one of its universities. I subsequently learned that his name for that assignment was submitted by the Guyana Government. Imagine Bourne going to evaluate a British university and he presided over UG that has become so badly flattened that it cannot secure accreditation for many of its programmes.
I was glad that he was not reappointed to the CDB. Compton Bourne is one of those names you hear in prestigious circles but when you come to know and work with these names you find it as just status and no substance. As came out in the Bharrat Jagdeo libel suit against me, Dr. Bourne is a recipient of a house lot in Pradoville 2. In an interview with this newspaper, he said he has settled in Trinidad and will not return to live in Guyana. Readers need to know that Dr. Compton Bourne was awarded the Order of Excellence. How he came to have that, most Guyanese would like to know.
Frederick Kissoon

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