Naked UG graduates on stage in a country that doesn’t “wear” clothes

Nov 17, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

It doesn’t matter what type of person you are; living in this country will cause every citizen at some moment or the other to question its very existence. What takes place here simply has no rational explanation in psychology, philosophy and science. These things force you to ask yourself; can Guyana ever succeed as a county and is it not going to go under one of these days?
The University of Guyana has a brand new Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor. The Vice-Chancellor in turn has greatly expanded the senior staff at UG. He has also introduced some money-raising schemes. UG now has along with the Vice-Chancellor, three Deputy Vice-Chancellors, a Chief of Staff in the vice-chancellery, a Chief Strategic Officer in the vice-chancellery. But have the services improved? The answer is a reverberating no.
My daughter and her friend each spent four hours trying to collect their stuff including certificates, awards etc., from the 2014 graduation year. I will not detail the hassles involved. But here is what will now shock you.
The new Vice-Chancellor has imposed a $10,000 graduation requirement. In his justification, he said other universities have it. What the new Vice-Chancellor mentions is the fact that these universities offer top class services to their staff and students. The Vice-Chancellor worked at a few American universities, he must know about the quality of service there.
Over a hundred graduates were told the day before the big event in their lives that the university did not have graduation gowns, caps and hats.
There is a sad letter in the press (KN) from a mother who couldn’t control her anger. Imagine how that student and her parents felt. But there is a dimension of the disaster that will get you angry. They had to pay $10,000. And since some of them weren’t on the stage, will they get a refund? If the answer is yes, will they get that refund before they die?
Read what the mother wrote in her denunciatory letter; “It is very much unfair especially to those students who live away from the city and had to sacrifice the expense of flying to the city from the interior, pay boarding and lodging during this time again, with great expectations and high hopes only to have them shattered with this gross disrespect and disappointment. I think it is really unfair that they have to incur such injustice…but I suppose Guyana is what it is.”
But surely the university had to know how many students were graduating. Not one student is going to sue the university, so the rut at UG and in Guyana will continue. The question, then, is what are all these administrators doing at UG?
But let’s reflect on the mother’s statement – “Guyana is what it is.”
What is Guyana? Why can’t we get at least a few things right? Why must this country remain such a sickening, hopeless piece of mudflat? You thought with a new Vice-Chancellor and his massive new team, UG would have turned the corner.
Can we get anything right? Why do we have to be so morbidly incompetent? Why does public service to the citizens of this nation have to be so abysmal?
I sat next to Leonard Gildarie, assistant editor at Kaieteur News, and I made the point to him that even if I had a few bucks and wanted to start a little business, the spirit is so broken that I would not even think about it.
I went on to say to Leonard Gildarie that we must admire the people who invest in this country. The most courageous humans on Planet Earth are Guyanese businessmen.
The super-rich family, the Beharrys, told the media that for more than six months their licence to open the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise was held up by the City Council. These are the Beharrys that can call up any of the powerful bigwigs in the corridors of power; what then happens to the ordinary man who has no contacts with the Granger/Nagamootoo team and wants to start a little business drying his banga mary? Only the Almighty Lord, if he exists, can save him.
Actually, I didn’t tell Leonard Gildarie the whole truth. I have opened up a little business with some money I borrowed from Mr. Glenn Lall of this newspaper. I have started a business to patch bicycle tubes at the place that symbolizes the Golden Jubilee – Durban Park. But last week it was closed down to make way for expansion of the Durban Park pavilions for next year’s Independence celebration.

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