UG Berbice campus in financial meltdown - Samad

UG Berbice campus in financial meltdown – Samad

Jul 29, 2013 News

…blames Turkeyen’s “dictatorship”

Outgoing University of Guyana Berbice Campus (UGBC) Director, Professor Daizal R. Samad has stated that the campus is in a financial meltdown and that the campus’s budget is in tatters while the institution is operating in a deficit.
Samad resigned early July from his position. It will take effect in October. The Guyana Government allocates more than $200M annually to UGBC. Prof. Samad has stated that he cannot work under the “dictatorial policies” of Turkeyen. The situation over the months, he said, has become much worse.
Relations with the new Vice- Chancellor, Prof. Jacob Opadeyi, too, have become distant and tumultuous over the past months. He believes Turkeyen is responsible for the ultimate destruction of UGBC and has called for the government to intervene or watch UGBC collapse.
Prof. Samad decried that millions of dollars are spent every week shuttling UGBC lecturers to Georgetown for meetings and other unnecessary and minute things… “meetings to set a couple of questions for exams; meetings for marking the exams, how you mark, to check the marks; meeting to photocopy exam papers;’ to pick them up; to bring them up, and so on—that’s a lot of money!”
He alleged, too, that millions are being spent for those meetings, “so you’re spending tens of millions of dollars to do what?”
He believes that with prudent financial management, UGBC can keep the student tuition to $127,000.
“However, we don’t want the government to be giving us money ad infinitum; we can fund plans here, easily, and make Berbice financially self- sufficient in seven to eight years. We can do that. Let other people talk about increasing tuition; not us!”
“Turkeyen …is a broken place, but we are coming under the broken place. It’s distressing when you have people who are foreigners, coming here and treating our citizens in Berbice as if we’re third class citizens- -we are not slaves!” He added that the situation exists where you have a “failed enterprise like Turkeyen dictating to a successful enterprise- -what will they teach us, how to fail?”
Prof. Samad is calling for full autonomy from the Turkeyen Campus and for Berbice to have its own University. “You call it University of Berbice in Guyana or the Cheddi Jagan University, which was Cheddi’s dream in the first place—not UG! “UGBC is the most successful organization in Berbice; nobody can deny it, and certainly one of the most successful organizations in Guyana.”
“CUTTING BACK”
He stated that the campus will not be holding its Annual Reading Programme which benefits over 50 children from primary schools on the Corentyne area. The reading programme costs about $100,000 to execute and lasts just under three weeks. Prof. Samad stated that he has learnt through the Administrative Officer at UGBC, Mr. David Cort that the reading programme is one of the areas that the Vice Chancellor “wants to cut back.” “To help our children is a necessity—that is an area of cutback. If that is not rubbish, you tell me what is?!”
Additionally, the Berbice Campus was also reportedly barred from participating in this year’s Berbice Expo and Trade Fair. For several years, the campus had a booth at the premier trade fair, exhibiting its courses, talent and giving information to visitors to the expo; not so this year. “We’ve been told no. they are not releasing our money to participate in Berbice Expo…that is what is happening here. So our engagement with the private sector is being broken…”
He added that the monies are there for the Annual Reading Programme and participation at the Berbice Expo, and it hurts him, “but we are being told—dictated to like slaves, ‘you can’t get the money’”.

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