Dear Editor,
Stabroek News on November 6, 2016 (‘$2 million raised by UG on $4 M NY trip’) carried a report on information provided by the University of Guyana Administration following a request from your newspaper. Your paper deserves credit for this initiative looking into one aspect of this mainly taxpayer funded entity.
It is not, however, that questions had not been raised internally before the trip was undertaken. According to a top leader of one of the unions representing UG workers, the Vice-Chancellor and Principal Ivelaw Griffith, in response to questions and comments raised by them prior to the visit, had promised that a financial report would be presented at the conclusion of the team’s visit which ended on September 6.
No report was submitted until September 20, 2016, but noticeably, a financial report was missing. In my capacity as a member of the University Council and Chair of the Audit Committee, I made a request for a more informative report setting out the “financial costs and returns” from the exercise. Support was received from a number of council members and this prompted a response from the UG Administration that the financial report would be finalised by September 30 and would “be shared with the Council and other stakeholders.”
That date came and passed, prompting me to send a reminder on October 3 but troublingly, I received no response to the reminder. On October 27 I sent another email enquiring whether there was any update. That too failed to elicit a direct response from the administration.
It was not until a week later that a report was finally submitted to the Council of the University showing that the UG Administration, in money, had spent $4.4 million to raise $2.0 million.
As a council member, Chair of the Audit Committee, part-time lecturer at the university and a taxpayer, I have some serious concerns about this whole issue:
- This matter is not only about actual sums received and paid. A proper prior analysis would have to consider the value of the time and the opportunity cost involved. The economic cost no doubt runs into several millions more than the financial cost.
- Thirteen of the university’s key staff were away from the Turkeyen campus (the Berbice campus did not have a representative) for a week during which their presence was critical to providing service to students. Among them was the Personnel Officer through whom contracts are issued to lecturers. Incredibly, even as the semester draws to a close, that exercise has not been completed.
- While even as a council member I would not want to second guess the judgment of the Vice-Chancellor and management, I find it hard to understand the reason to take in the team two Deputy Vice-Chancellors, two Deputy Vice-Chancellors designate and the Vice-Chancellor’s Chief of Staff designate of the newly designated Vice-Chancellor’s Cabinet.
- The administration appears to have regarded accounting and accountability, commitments made to the unions and repeated concerns of members of the council, of less importance than public relations.
- Accounting and accountability are vital in any organization, but no more so than in a taxpayer-funded entity. The audit of the financial statements for the year 2014 is still in progress. The university is struggling to attract a Chief Accountant while its internal audit function is under-resourced and ill-equipped to carry out basic internal audit functions. This cannot impress any of the university’s stakeholders students, donors, taxpayers and, very importantly at this moment, the Ministry of Finance whose Budget Director is a member of council and of its Audit Committee.
Statute 12 Powers of the Council, made under the University of Guyana Act, vests in the council which includes three key government officers the power “to govern, manage and regulate the finances, accounts, investments, property, business and all affairs whatsoever of the University …” It, and the country, cannot afford such responsibility to be taken lightly, delegated or abdicated.
In this regard, Chancellor Professor Nigel Harris and Pro-Chancellor Ms Bibi Shadick have important roles to play in the good governance of the university, even as they allow the Vice-Chancellor and his team to carry out their functions and duties without any interference.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
