Govt. asked to justify giving sports $4B, but UG little over $3B

Jan 30, 2023 News

Kaieteur News – Speaking during the recently concluded budget debates Opposition Member of Parliament, Cathy Hughes asked how can the administration justify putting over $4 billion into sports and little over three billion to the University of Guyana, the premier institution “we expect to provide the qualified professionals we so desperately need to fill the skills gap and local content requirements that currently exists.”

The University of Guyana was allocated $3.7B of this year’s budget

Hughes said 5 of the 8 faculties at UG are science-based with the faculty of social sciences housing 12 different disciplines. “How do you justify the Goal scholarship programme getting about half of UG’s budget with no physical infrastructure to manage the high expectations we and the private sector have of UG. Does this make logical sense? Mr. Speaker Politics should never intrude on our educational capability,” Hughes thundered.

During his budget presentation, Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh had told the House that to meet the growing demand for qualified personnel, “our tertiary institutions will increase their intake to produce more graduates to boost Guyana’s human capital.” He noted that over the last two years, 6,100 students graduated from the University of Guyana. As such he said for this year, an amount of $3.7 billion is allocated for the management and expansion of operations at the University of Guyana, Turkeyen and Berbice campuses. Additionally, the sum of $1.8 billion is budgeted for the GOAL scholarship programme and caters for 8,555 new students and 1,047 continuing students. This, he said will add to the nearly 14,000 scholarships awarded since 2021, fulfilling the Manifesto promise of providing 20,000 online scholarships.

Meanwhile, Hughes also flagged the low salaries being received by teachers, saying, “Mr. Speaker how is it possible that the APNU+AFC Coalition at a time when there were no oil revenues was able to make permanent salary increase in the minimum wage of teachers, nurses, doctors, members of the defense services, police and security forces. In 2015 it moved from $39,570 to $50,000 a 26% increase, 10% in 2016, from 55,000 to 60,000–20%, …over the four years minimum wage increased from 39,570 to 70,000 by 2019..77%…and in this booming oil economy, nothing extra on permanent salaries. Yes Mr. Speaker I’m making an important distinction. An increase on their salary, something extra every month…not a “one off grant” when the government feels like giving you something.”

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