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THE UWI Financing DEBATE

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Submitted by Ellis Chase

University of the West indies, Cave Hill

There has been something of a debate on the funding of higher education in Barbados recently. As is typical, and strange for a well educated country, clear facts and hard information have largely been absent, and persons seem to be taking political and ideological positions. The Nation newspaper recently ran an article about UWI finances after a public pronouncement by the Finance and Economic Affairs Minister. The article prompted me to seek out some hard information on UWI finances, and I was shocked at how hard it was to get some. Finally, after some wheeling and dealing I got my hands on the UWI, Cave Hill audited financials for the period 1999 to 2009.

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188 responses to “THE UWI Financing DEBATE”

  1. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    David this is a heavy article.

    Why don’t entities that get subventions post their financials on their websites. It seems to be such a norm nowadays.

    Its good to get some figures to get a sense of the cost of the campus. Can we afford it t6hough?

    Are we really getting value for money?

  2. anthony Avatar
    anthony

    Now uwi charges the government on students en rolled not just making up any expenditure and submitting. most if not all the government money is economic cost the Barbados paying for the students. the other part is the tuition. Most of the economic cost for degree programs can is between 4-5 time the tuition cost. given the figures it is in the right place.

    The answer for 1 if you want a figure might be about 30-50 million in 2009 and less amount the previous year. about 10-15% of fiscal deficient.

    2 be answer in first paragraph

    3 you could write a whole dissertation about what should be done but the end result is no one wants to start changing the system

    4 as with most think i don’t think there is a policy

    5 a great question but only way to really find out is spend a good set of money on consultant to do lots of surverys. Was is a good investment probably it was . was it a great value for money probably not.

    6 they can try of course. backlash can always happen depending on how they try to do it.

  3. Caswell Franklyn Avatar
    Caswell Franklyn

    Sinckler last Sunday spoke of the rise in the long and short debt which the campus has incurred and which the government will have to service, but this has been rejected by an official connected to the campus who indicated that the funding will be serviced by Cave Hill itself.

    The above quote was cut and pasted from the Nation article. I find it very strange that no one has highlighted the conflicting positions of the Minister and the campus official. Both cannot be telling the truth. The campus official has in effect called the Minister a liar and I have not heard the Minister saying anything to defend his honour. Under the Westminster System of governance that is practiced in Barbados a Minister of the Crown should resign if he is caught lying to Parliament ot to the public.

    Mr. Sinckler defend your honour or do the decent thing.

  4. Artaxerxes Avatar
    Artaxerxes

    Before we get caught up in the political shenanigans, we must understand that the University of the West Indies does not belong to Barbados, Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago. Therefore, each campus cannot be subjected to independent audits as suggested by Chris Sinckler, an audit must be conducted on all campuses. It has been advanced by sympathizers of this administration that the UWI has been reckless in spending the subventions allocated by the government of Barbados, as it relates to the expansion of the campus, and the foresight of the principle of the UWI to realize the goal of having a graduate in every household in Barbados.

  5. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    It is funny the way the principals flaunt their wealth whilst still operating in an establishment that is essentially a beggar company …!

  6. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ anthony | November 24, 2011 at 9:40 PM |

    ” 5 a great question but only way to really find out is spend a good set of money on consultant to do lots of surverys. Was is a good investment probably it was . was it a great value for money probably not.”

    This will be the next move. Hire some high-paid consultants of personal association to look into the matter and to report back telling us what we already know! Further waste of money!
    It better be done within 6 months or else this kind of expenditure won’t fly the IMF boys and girls unless conducted by their own friends.

  7. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    If the public of Barbados had been aware of the cost of the UWI expansion and the mode of fudning would we have agreed to it? Where was the media when government contribution was moving from an average of 50ml to twice that amount? The same media that has jumped over all other froms of expenditure?

    Art, as far as I can read the figures are for the Cave Hill campus as distinct from uwi.

    Caswell, I doubt a private entity would lend unless the debt is guarenteed by the government of barbados.

    Anthony
    the point I understand the author to be raising is the efficacy of a system that allows the UWI to admit how many students it wants and then send a bill, especially when doing so can result in an extra 50ml dollars of exepnditure.

    You folks are taking this very well. To me this is absolutely shocking. Which other social program has seen such an expansion, and what mad us think we could afford and sustain it. Fiscal good sense seems to have abandoned us for a while now.

  8. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    We all love to cuss the Transport board, but a lot of poor and old people get to move around. Free bus fares for school children, we cuss at that. We love to cuss CBC ( i think it should be sold) but its the lifeblood of a lot of ordinary bajans. Saniatation people clean the streets do our garbage etc.., but we jump on them any chance we get.

    Nuff spening at UWI, serious questions about the quality of graduates, no one really seems to want to have that discussion.

    maybe i just jealous because I never went. But cat luck really aint dog luck. Some people and institutions seem above serious criticism.

    Bad political move by the government, that educated elite, do not touch them and their sacred cow.

  9. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    When the principal said private sector help for the campus, I certainly did not understand him to be saying loans from financial institutions.

  10. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    Nor I

  11. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Old School | November 24, 2011 at 10:30 PM |

    The PM has already given his “iron clad” assurance that tertiary education is sacrosanct and will NOT be cut. Or is he just gassing off as in the case of assuring CLICO investors that they will get back their money? From whom, from where and when?

    All the PM is doing is testing the propaganda waters. I am prepared to be that by this time next year Bajan students enrolled at UWI would be contributing 50% to their education either by way of educational loans or from their private funds. But there may be a graduated introduction over a 3 yr period. Watch this space!

  12. David Avatar
    David

    The trendline in government subvention is alarming to say the least.

    The flipside is that most Bajans bought into the hook, a bajan in every household by 2025.

  13. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    Stuart has said that the Gov’t remains committed to free Tertiary Education (or words to that effect).

    If I was in his position I would say the same Mrs. Stuart didn’t raise a fool, what is the first rule of a politician? Get re-elected. What is the second rule? Get re-elected, for all the other rules see rule No.1.
    Anyone with half a brain knows that “free” University Education is costing the country a mint but “Free” Education is the third rail of Bajan politics touch it and Zap you’re fried

    It will take a brave politician to tinker with “Free Education” and none of the politicians in Barbados would volunteer for self immolation unless they want to be the “Boy on the Burning Deck” (who stood alone).

    The numbers suggest (make that shout) that there was a free for all, no budgetary considerations so the UWI Administration could expand without any oversight. The Principal could muse about a graduate from every household without any consideration on how the bills would be paid.

    Now we are into 2011 and the coffers are empty or very close to being depleted and the country’s economy is on the skids, something has got to give

    The Question is what?

  14. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    Free education is fine. But what are we producing? Social Scientist and Lawyers for Christ’s sake, and for what …? THEY PRODUCE NOTHING (other than reports and books) and draw salaries from tax payers and consumers …!

  15. Inkwell Avatar
    Inkwell

    A graduate in every household. That’s easy to achieve when the pass mark is 40%. But all that does is produce the mediocre graduate we have been seeing coming out of Cave Hill by the hundreds. What a travesty.

    UWI is doing itself and Barbados a grave disservice by churning out substandard “graduates” who are presented a degree having obtained the stellar pass mark of 40%. Gives new meaning to the phrase “educated idiot”.

    Somebody please tell me I am wrong.

  16. David Avatar
    David

    Agree with Inkwell totally, to borrow a cliche used often to describe the 11 Plus Exam, ‘education appears to be a sacred cow which must not be slaughtered’.

  17. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    You are wrong … (Just because you said please)

  18. Brutus Avatar
    Brutus

    The 2010 figures for Cave Hill are available:

    http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/resources/documents/reports/cavehill_financial_report_2009_2010.pdf

  19. islandgal246 Avatar
    islandgal246

    Inkwell…..”UWI is doing itself and Barbados a grave disservice by churning out substandard “graduates” who are presented a degree having obtained the stellar pass mark of 40%. Gives new meaning to the phrase “educated idiot”.

    You are not wrong at all! We see and meet them everyday in the papers and on the news.

  20. islandgal246 Avatar
    islandgal246

    Many graduates believe that a degree is like real estate …….that it improves in value the longer they have it.

  21. Seeker Avatar
    Seeker

    What degree? It’s about work & experience…or is it?

  22. lemuel Avatar
    lemuel

    What I find troubling about this piece is that I sense a “political shannigan” behind it. It is not enough (to quote George Lamming) to undertake analysis within a certain confining context and then broadly espouse a position about how the UWI Cave Hill is being financed.

    This article should have taken time to discussed why the institution was set up in the first place. It should also have discussed the social, economic or political factors that would have engendered the environment which supported the explosion of the finances. It should have, historically, reviewed the type or quality of graduate, and cast some assumptions on whether this is the type of graduate that is needed in the Caribbean today.

    It is VERY unfair to the institution to just bring a spread sheet accounting argument for its demise. UWI has been and shall continue to be an institution of social reform. On other pieces I would have criticized it , but when I see (like Chalk Dust) these middle class and upper middle class culprits who went to and benefited from UWI now on a path of destruction because they can now afford to send little sammy and jane overseas for education, I get blue in the face. For their actions are worse than those who climb the ladder and at the last round at the top turn and kick that ladder down.

    Yes, we shall face or are facing tough economic times, but should we so dismantle a fundamental institution that when times improve it shall prove impossible to put together again. Only mad people think like that, and if Chris Sinkcler whose mother (like most of us) did not have two red cents to rub together to send him to UWI thinks so, then he has joined the ranks of those who turn and kick the ladder down.

  23. lemuel Avatar
    lemuel

    To Inkwell:
    You seem to be too subsumed in ink or well into it. When you present a UWI degree any where overseas, it is accepted as coming from the Caribbean’s premier intellectual institution. I have first hand knowledge of that when I presented mine for evaluation. Do not jump on the fact the some of the graduates are weak in writing to tarnish the whole lot. Even in my times there were weak students and those who took the “easy path” to secure first class honors; you may even be calling some of them Dr. this or that each day. ALL universities have weak students. When you meet some of them you wonder about the standards too. This is too fundamental an issue to be so lamely discussed with such a heavy dose of puerility. If you are wondering, I am not any of the high flyers on the Hill.

  24. enuff Avatar
    enuff

    Pass mark at:
    University of Oxford 40%
    London School of Economics 40%
    University College London 40%
    Warwick University 40%

    The elimination of the 11+ plus may see the end of HC, QC etc, but the emergence of Wills, Providence et al. Just look at what’s happening at the primary school level. The exam is a great leveler and should neither be replaced nor remain compulsory. What we need is another option for entry to ‘non-academic’ secondary schooling. Both can exist, but unless we change our way of thinking, i.e our view of academic vs non-academic, the current system will remain.

  25. David Avatar
    David

    @lemuel

    The issue here is a simple one, in the harsh economic environment how can the current model be modified to ensure we can ALL make it?

    @enuff

    Your recommendation is based on empericals?

  26. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    But Lemuel who is asking for the demise of UWI. You now sound political. You all want accountability except when it applies to certain people and institutions.

    I took the time to read the national strategic plan and the notion of one graduate per household. My understanding of it is that a graduate in every household was never meant as a university graduate in every household, it was meant a trained, skilled, certified person in every household whether it be academic or vocational, and encompassed a wide range of certification.

    Did the society ever discuss whether it wanted a university graduate in every household? I have made more money than most university graduates as a skilled and certified chef and I think I am quite well read and knowledgeable as well. We need skilled and certified people in a broad range of areas, not necessarily an oversupply of persons trained for civil service and large corporation type jobs, which is what the typical university degree prepares persons for.

    If you want to get political this UWI expansion was sanctioned by Arthur, who now says that the social sector is too large, when he oversaw the doubling of one of the most expensive of the social programs. Of course thats looking back.

  27. lemuel Avatar
    lemuel

    To Old School:
    You have just confirmed my suspicion that this piece is a “political kite” that is being flown to justify the demise of free education. A tenet of a DLP administration. Mr. School this discussion is not about political kite flying but about social transformation and revolution. These young DLP politicians seemed bent on destroying UWI; it is not about whether Owen wanted a graduate for each house hold or not.

  28. Suspicious Avatar
    Suspicious

    That loan from CLICO – don’t pay it back! You know what will happen. CLICO will write it off. Once it’s off the books, it will be paid, but not to CLICO.

  29. Employer Avatar
    Employer

    UWI is churning out toilet paper degrees – they are absolutely worthless except as an attempt to fool an employer. But most, in the Caribbean have wised up. The candidates presenting with their “degrees” (in irrelevant soft, social subjects) seem to know nothing about what they have studied for three years.

    Every Tom, Dick and Harry is going to UWI and doing “Management” or “Banking” or “Social Studies” or “Accountancy.” There appear to be no entry requirements whatsoever. Tertiary education is supposed to be for the elite.

    Everybody can get a degree from UWI = degree from UWI worthless.

  30. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    Okay lemuel, Free education is off the table. The tax payer should cough up whatever UWI asks for.

  31. lemuel Avatar
    lemuel

    To Old School:
    Read what I said earlier; we have to review if the primary directive of the institution has been nullified by social and economic development. Is the original mandate the same; if it is not, then what do we have to do to make UWI relevant to modern Caribbean societies. UWI has to respond to the developmental direction that it needs to adopt. Again, I have some difficulty in this age of science and information technology that the institution has not fully responded to that challenge. Students can adopt; most of the time they are shafted into what is available not what is needed.

    To Employer:
    You could only be a foolish man, woman or child; why would you hire someone with a degree in history to undertake technical tasks at a certain level when it is clear that other skills are needed. You sound like one of those people who never got or could ever get a degree and here is your opportunity to pour scorn. Furthermore, to maintain our secondary and primary levels of education we need those soft subjects.

  32. enuff Avatar
    enuff

    @ Employer
    The ability to think critically and communicate one’s opinions verbally and written in a clear, concise manner is key. A graduate with a banking degree and the ability to do critical analysis is better than one with an engineering degree gained via rote. It is how students are being taught and assessed, rather than the subject.

    @David
    Do you have empiricals? What are you replacing the 11+ with?
    Based on my observations, more and more parents I know are sending their children to private primary schools. Kids are being put on a waiting list from birth!! Erdiston (now George Lamming), Wesley Hall etc are no longer as desirable. Simply put, those than can afford the school fees are shunning public primary schools more so than in previous years; and the same children will not be attending the current elite schools if they are ‘zoned’ or UWI for that matter in the future.

  33. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    The whole lack of transparency and national discussion around this UWI expansion may well underlie the issues you have raised.

    If we want to expand science and technology we may need to spend more resources at the lower levels of the education system where students do not seem to be taking Maths and Science courses, and not doing that well. Do we have that many schools equipped to teach science and technology? I

    f a sufficient number of students are not doing and succeeding at science and technology subjects lower down in the system, there is no real feeder for UWI.

    It seems to me that an influential elite has been able to work the political system very well. The UWI expansion has been expensive and seems to have served UWI well, not so sure about the rest of the society though.

  34. lemuel Avatar
    lemuel

    To Old School:
    I shall totally agree with your last post. Our danger is these so elite social groups whose only claim to fame is the destruction of any and everything they are associated with.

  35. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    An doubling of the UWI student body as has happened would have to have been based around:

    1. Accepting more students without post-secondary qualifications given that Barbados Community College has not really expanded, and this september the new sixth forms at st. michael and foundation were the first additions to the sixth form stock since god knows when.

    2. students in social sciences and the humanities, given that when you look at cxc, community college and a levels that where the vast majority of students are taking subjects.

    Again, I think an elite group with access to the levers of power and a capacity to influence public opinion, and a group the society is reluctant to question, has pulled off a major coup and been able to extract extra benefits from the state for themselves. I think the medical faculty is an expensive indulgence the society can ill afford. We are soon going to be asked to fund a full law school now that jamaica and trinidad are offering full law.

    Cuh dear, can you really question education spending.

  36. lemuel Avatar
    lemuel

    To School and Enuff:
    I have a very serious concern about the politicizing of fundamental societal provisions, whether it be education or health. What happens here is that many of our half wit politicians spend a lot of time attempting to undo what the other party did; instead of trying to build on them for the betterment of our society. No one can take away what Errol barrow did for education, and if these present ones would understand that they would know what they have to do. The laughable thing is that we have made the political process so adverse in nature that we are left, for the most part, with a bunch of “c” students running the country.

  37. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    But how has it been politicized?

    If you are trying to plug a financial hole it makes sense to look at the major areas of spending first.

    Education, health and the wage bill are our biggest expenditures. If one or more of these are not touched then you spinning top in mud.

  38. lemuel Avatar
    lemuel

    To Old School:
    Why are you buying this propaganda. There about three of four Ministries of Government that can be closed today right now without an impact on Barbados. Start with that frame of mind that Barbados does have to guarantee each politician a Ministry. Do not School allow people to focus their agenda on you. There are several statutory boards that can be dismantled and their function subsumed elsewhere. Do you really think we need a ministry of housing and the NHC too. Sorry I have to go, later.

  39. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    I am not buying into any propaganda, I am looking at the estimates of income and expenditures:

    I think jumping on the NHC reflects some of the prejudices in our society. Now from where I sit, the dramatic increases in property prices over the last ten or more years, is one of the major factors impacting on Barbadians. I actually thing an overlooked issue in this recession, is that the ability of the society to adjust to the recession is affected by the fact that due to the spike in property prices during the building boom, many ambitious people who braved the market are locked into quite large mortgages, and have little or no financial space.

    Given what has happened with property prices, what is a more urgent issue for the advancement of the well being of ordinary people in Barbados at this time? Is it $18,000,000 for an extra 200 new psychology/management or history graduates from UWI (at around $90,000 per degree), or 72 new houses constructed at around BDS$250,000 per house due to a NHC subsidy.

    The NHC is far from efficient, but does UWI’s efficiency ever come under scrutiny? Driving by, UWI seems to have become quite a lavish place. Do our prejudices instinctively lead us to look down on the NHC type entities.?

    I suggest to you that given the property market, state assistance in the area of housing may well have more developmental impact than an extra 200 psychology/management or history graduates.

  40. enuff Avatar
    enuff

    @ Old School
    Why should a house being built on government land cost $250,000? Why do we have to own our houses?
    My answer would be the degree!!

  41. Businessman Avatar
    Businessman

    When I loom at this through my business eyes, I see a connection between the various issues being raised here. When I look at the fianncials I see a debt financed expansion. To pay that debt you need revenues, therefore UWI has ramped up the student body by bringing in the marginally qualified and billed the government, which has paid until now due to the financial crisis.

    You can claim you are building capacity, you and your supporters can claim that the expansion is driven by the private sector and all can pat themselves on the back. What I see is the tax payer funding education for an increasing quantity of poor to mediocre graduates. There are still good graduates, but the number of poor and mediocre will increase to pay for this expansion, and the tax payer will largely foot the bill.

    A little birdie told me that the model is to have a cricket tournament on campus costing $100,000, get CO Williams to put in $25,000, call the tournament after him and claim its private sector funded.

    Put up a building for 4ml, borrw 3 from clico, clico donates 1ml, name the building after them, give out the impression that the building was entirely funded by clico.

    Who is checking? We all want to believe the hype.

  42. Old School Avatar
    Old School

    Fine the degree might work for you, especially if you have no desire to own a home.

    I guess my broader question is, without government intervention in the housing market is home ownership still realistic for many bajans?

  43. Poor Class Avatar
    Poor Class

    This UWI thing is laying bare the middle and upper class bias on this blog.

    If these were figures for the Transport Board that poor people use, people would be doing dixie on this blog,the outrage would be palpable.

    If it had been SSA that serves us all, but no real big ups work there, lawd, the talk would have been about wastage and inefficiency.

    You know some big-up, wrote in the paper, that the problem in this recession is that everybody wants the deficit cut, but just don’t increase any taxes that affect me, or cut any expenditures that benefit me or I think are worthwhile.

    The middle and upper class dominate the media and are able to shape public opinion. What they now seem to be saying is don’t tax my entertainment allowance (which was really salary, structured to avoid taxes), don’t touch nice middle class entitlement like UWI, send home some of those lowly public servants instead.

    It was not the poor people, but the high flying middle and upper class types that brought the world to this mess.

  44. chocolate city hussle Avatar
    chocolate city hussle

    @Inkwell | November 25, 2011 at 2:54 AM |
    …Tt all that does is produce the mediocre graduate we have been seeing coming out of Cave Hill by the hundreds…UWI is doing itself and Barbados a grave disservice by churning out substandard “graduates” who are presented a degree having obtained the stellar pass mark of 40%.

    AS FAR AS I AM AWARE THAT 40% OR D, WHEN EQUIVILISED TO USA STANDARDS IS EQUAL TO 60% OR B

  45. bajeabroad Avatar
    bajeabroad

    You know, I am actually typing this piece with a heavy heart because sadly I think we all know the answer to the question at the end.

    The education debate is but one indicator that VISIONARY leadership is SADLY lacking in Barbados. Here we have an education system that costs thousands of dollars to educate a single child from primary to tertiary levels and yet the most common output is a Soc Sci graduate who has no entrepreneurial spirit or inclination and has to depend on someone else or the “gubment” to provide them with a job or means to live – RIDICULOUS.

    Here we have an island that was the leader in alternative energy use as far back as 25 years ago, yet we still grappling with BL&P rates and back and forth about wind power sites in St Lucy. Still can’t commercialise energy from other natural sources that God has blessed this island with. Yet we are an educated class – RIDICULOUS

    Here we have an island that still follows traditional British methods of educating our kids. Instead of free tertiary education, we should concentrate more spend on , trades, science, world knowledge, business studies, information technology at the primary and secondary levels. ALL secondary school students should be taught these principles BEFORE graduation and we should have all kinds in national innovation competitions to stir entrepreneurial juices and give students practical things to aim for and allow them to start using practical skills. Pray tell me, what use is teaching english literature to 2500 secondary school students in these times? So we can quote “to be or not to be” Absolute BS and waste of time and money!!.

    When are we going to get a visionary PM that gets it!! That understands that energy independence, agriculture and food security, and a business literate entrepreneurial population are the best weapons against what is happening across the globe? It is not glamourous, but strong fundamentals ALWAYS win in the end. We just don’t have leaders that connect all the dots and are able to establish CLEAR, NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES to guide us on the right path. We have a bunch of Soc Sci, never create anythingers in and around the highest office in the land. With no others on the horizon in any political party. That is really the sad thing!

    WHEN WILL WE SEE A VISIONARY LEADER THAT GETS IT?

  46. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Poor Class | November 25, 2011 at 1:53 PM |
    “You know some big-up, wrote in the paper, that the problem in this recession is that everybody wants the deficit cut, but just don’t increase any taxes that affect me, or cut any expenditures that benefit me or I think are worthwhile.”

    Well, case close! You have just argued an airtight incontrovertible case for the intervention of a foreign adjudicator. No political will to make harsh but necessary decisions! So the IMF will intervene. Moodys, now followed by S&P! Next move: IMF will be taken up residence and will be dictating who gets what and when.
    Let the chattering classes continue to jump in turns on the soap box. The rains are on the horizon and the box will soon be very slippery.

  47. enuff Avatar
    enuff

    @ Old School
    “Fine the degree might work for you, especially if you have no desire to own a home.”
    ——————-
    You contradicting yourself!!
    The desire to own a home is no different to the desire to own a degree. One needs SHELTER not HOME OWNERSHIP!! If government should not subsidise EDUCATION, how is subsidising owning a HOME justified? You believe the latter is a better investment than the former?

    @ Bajeabroad
    Name one nation that is energy independent solely on alternative sources? And with all the MITs, Stanfords, Cornels and CalTechs, the USA still far, far behind in commercialising alternative energy. Viability and geopolitics?

  48. uneducated Avatar
    uneducated

    @Caswell

    R u for real, then we wont have anybody running for politics. All politicains are liars and liars are politicians. Take you pick.

    The Minister of Education contributed to the increase by allowing UWI to accept persons with lower second class honours to pursue masters studies and the gove picks up the slack. Previously students had to possess upper second class honours whcih demonstrate that you had some scholarly ability, but now any ninconpoop can get accept the govt will pay for their education at Masters level.

  49. Random Thoughts Avatar
    Random Thoughts

    Quoting Ellis Chase’s question 6, “Is the government not right to want to get to the bottom of this, or at least exercise control over this?”

    Maybe, maybe not.

    It is not the government’s money.

    It is the taxpayers money

    Many of these taxpayers are UWI alumni

    Many of these taxpayers are the children of UWI alumni

    Many of these taxpayers are the parents of UWI alumni

    If the tax payers, and their tax paying parents and their tax paying children want to spend money on UWI. So be it.

    I am always leery of people who seek to “exercise control” over money that they did not work for.

    I am even more leery of people who seek to “exercise control” over other people.

    Lest we forget, a democratic government is not about “control”. It is government of the people, government by the people, government for the people.

    I am of the opinin that there are way, way, way too many “control” freaks in this world.

  50. BAFBFP Avatar
    BAFBFP

    lemuel

    Let me continue a bit from where you left off. Why do you need a “Ministry of Housing and the NHC too”
    What about the Ministry of Culture and the NCF?
    Look for argument’s sake at the Productivity Council and the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation, Home Affairs, Social Care Constituency Empowerment etc. as separate from the Community Development Dept. , Barbados Investment and Development Corp. along with Invest Barbados as separate entities even the Tourism Investment offshoot, seriously all just excuses to find jobs for the product of a mis-directed education sheme.

    To tell you the truth I would get rid of the offices of the FTC, Governor General and Inland Revenue too …!

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