Minister of Finance Winston Jordan has said that he is unsure of the ‘emergency’ funding the University of Guyana needs to reputedly prevent a collapse of the institution.
‘I don’t know what they mean by emergency because the budget only came out recently. So I don’t know what emergency they are speaking about.
So until the nature of the request is known I can’t make any comment,” the Finance Minister said in an invited comment yesterday. A conference of local and diaspora stakeholders of the University of Guyana (UG) last weekend called on the government to provide emergency funding to the institution to reverse its “imminent collapse”.
Held over three days, the conference, the initiative of new UG Vice-Chancellor Ivelaw Griffith, produced a resolution signed by 70 stakeholders based here and overseas calling for the urgent financing
Minister of Education Dr Rupert Roopnaraine on the other hand when asked yesterday whether the Government is prepared to give any assistance to the tertiary institution told Stabroek News that, “we are going to try and do everything we can. As you know UG is cash-strapped. I see that just at the stakeholder conference they were able to raise quite a fair amount and that is a good sign which shows that there are still people who are committed to the idea of the University to see the University go forward.
I am hopeful that we can get it going…My own hope is that we can really keep it up and restore the confidence of the nation, it’s the only tertiary institution that we have. We really have to invest in it,” the Minister said.
Stabroek News was unable to ascertain how much funding the university is exactly looking at as Vice Chancellor Ivelaw Griffith could not be reached for a comment.
Contending that the university had been woefully underfunded in the past, the recital to the resolution said that the Education Resource Ambassadors visited the Turkeyen and Tain Campuses and were “dismayed and deeply troubled at the degradation and neglect of the institution”. For years there have been complaints about the state of the campuses and demands by students and lecturers for major changes. There were several strikes and other protests over this.
The resolution in calling for the emergency funding said that the landscape and physical infrastructure of the Turkeyen Campus had critically deteriorated.
It added that the “health and safety of students, faculty and staff are threatened by mold and unsafe buildings … and staff are woefully underpaid, demotivated and constrained to work in poor conditions”
It further stated that the University is seriously underprovided with materials, equipment and technologies required for its effective functioning.
