RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad says a team head­ed by UDe­COTT is be­ing as­sem­bled to con­duct a de­tailed eval­u­a­tion of the Debe Cam­pus. He said there must be ac­count­abil­i­ty when tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars are spent.

Per­sad was re­spond­ing to ques­tions about the cam­pus at the open­ing of Par­lia­ment.

Asked whether UWI should be held ac­count­able for the state of the cam­pus, Per­sad said, “The first thing we’re do­ing, be­fore as­sign­ing blame in any di­rec­tion, is to con­duct a de­tailed sur­vey.

“We’ve had a pre­lim­i­nary vis­it, but now we’re mov­ing to­ward a full eval­u­a­tion of the site. Once that is com­plete, we can de­ter­mine who is re­spon­si­ble for the cur­rent state of the cam­pus. We’re putting to­geth­er a team to be­gin this process in the com­ing weeks.”

Asked whether UDe­COTT has con­trol or over­sight of the project, he clar­i­fied, “Not over­sight, but we want UDe­COTT to eval­u­ate the fa­cil­i­ty be­cause they have the ex­pe­ri­ence and ex­per­tise.”

On the mat­ter of gov­er­nance, Pro­fes­sor Per­sad was asked whether it is legal­ly per­mis­si­ble for the Gov­ern­ment to uni­lat­er­al­ly take back con­trol of a cam­pus un­der UWI’s ju­ris­dic­tion. He ex­plained that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing to de­ter­mine whether the lands are in fact vest­ed in UWI.

“To say any­thing more at this point would be pre­ma­ture,” he added.

Per­sad em­pha­sised that wher­ev­er pub­lic funds are in­volved, ac­count­abil­i­ty is es­sen­tial, and con­firmed that da­ta col­lec­tion is un­der­way.

When asked if he sup­ports an au­dit sys­tem, he re­spond­ed, “Yes, at UWI—and prob­a­bly oth­er in­sti­tu­tions too.”

Asked if the Debe cam­pus will open in Au­gust, he replied: “I don’t have a crys­tal ball.”

Re­spond­ing to claims that UWI’s au­ton­o­my is un­der at­tack, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal re­it­er­at­ed that the uni­ver­si­ty can­not uni­lat­er­al­ly change the des­ig­nat­ed pur­pose of the Debe cam­pus, which was de­signed and con­struct­ed specif­i­cal­ly for the Fac­ul­ty of Law.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has spo­ken clear­ly. The Debe cam­pus had a spe­cif­ic pur­pose, and $500 mil­lion of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey was in­vest­ed to­ward that goal. The UWI can­not uni­lat­er­al­ly change that pur­pose,” he said.

“As the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Oropouche East, where this cam­pus is lo­cat­ed, I am deeply dis­ap­point­ed that UWI has shift­ed its fo­cus and aban­doned the as­pi­ra­tions of the peo­ple in my con­stituen­cy and across the coun­try.

“This in­jus­tice must be ad­dressed, and the Prime Min­is­ter is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing it is.”

On Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­ment­ed on the state of the Debe cam­pus, de­scrib­ing it as a “dump” and threat­en­ing to re­claim it from UWI due to ne­glect and dis­re­pair.

“Do not test me! If I have to do it—and if we have to do it—I’ll take that cam­pus back and put it un­der Gov­ern­ment con­trol to en­sure it is com­plet­ed!” she said dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net brief­ing.

“The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ (UWI) Debe Cam­pus will house what the Gov­ern­ment says it will house, and the uni­ver­si­ty’s ad­min­is­tra­tion will have no say in that.”

Al­though UWI plans to open the Glob­al School of Med­i­cine at the cam­pus in Au­gust, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she did not know who au­tho­rised that change and re­it­er­at­ed that the orig­i­nal pur­pose of the fa­cil­i­ty was to serve law stu­dents from south Trinidad who have been com­mut­ing to St Au­gus­tine.

UWI’s of­fi­cial web­site states that while it col­lab­o­rates close­ly with re­gion­al gov­ern­ments for fund­ing and pol­i­cy align­ment, the uni­ver­si­ty man­ages its aca­d­e­m­ic, ad­min­is­tra­tive, and fi­nan­cial af­fairs in­de­pen­dent­ly.

Emails seek­ing com­ment on the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks were sent to sev­er­al UWI of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing vice-chan­cel­lor Prof Sir Hi­lary Beck­les, pro vice-chan­cel­lor Prof Justin Robin­son, uni­ver­si­ty reg­is­trar Mau­rice D Smith, sec­re­tari­at to the Chan­cel­lor’s Com­mis­sion Deb­o­rah Souza-Okpo­fab­ri, and St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus prin­ci­pal Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine.

As of now, no re­spons­es have been re­ceived. How­ev­er, UWI’s Mar­ket­ing and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit has ac­knowl­edged the in­quiries, stat­ing that the ques­tions will be for­ward­ed to the rel­e­vant in­ter­nal stake­hold­ers.

Pro­fes­sor An­toine is ex­pect­ed to in­vite the me­dia for a guid­ed tour of the Debe cam­pus next week.