…to Georgia
Finally, UG’s long-suffering staff – academic and non-academic – have drawn a line in the sand against the bow-tied but not purse-tied VC, Ivelaw Griffith. From the moment he was ensconced into office in 2016, he was determined to prove he’s the last of the big-time spenders. Trouble is, according to the staff, his spending was directed purely at himself and a tight coterie he dubbed his “Cabinet”! Yes -”Cabinet” — while the staff were left with crumbs!!
If folks wondered about his pretentions at being a “President” in charge of a “Cabinet”, his week-long mega-million-$ “inauguration” at several locales around the city, but mostly at the Princess Ramada, seemed more like the coronation of a monarch!! And from then on, it was all up…up…and awaaay with spending!! Jetting off to NY with an entourage to “raise funds”, where he spend more on flights and hotels than he collected, was just Griffith’s opening salvo.
He talked fat about opening a slew of new faculties – God knows where the professors will be coming from – while the basic foundational courses, like English and science, remain mired in mediocrity. There were any number of “outreaches” and “twinnings” with foreign universities, which boiled down to junkets for a lucky few while the rest of the student body had to make do with the same ole, same ole.
But what most folks missed, however, was that — if they’d just taken a cursory look at Griffith’s previous job — none of the above would’ve been any surprise. As your Eyewitness has been mentioning ad nauseam, in 2013, Griffith had been appointed President of a small (enrollment 3000) land grant black school in Georgia – Fort Valley State University – that catered to students who were not in much better straits than those at UG.
He enjoyed the same 1-wk Inauguration “gala”, this time under the theme “Dreaming and Doing: A Vision for Excellence Engagement”, before announcing an explosion of the school’s programmes much as he’s doing at UG. He flew off to foreign locales – especially to the Caribbean – where he announced he was “internationalising” his university in the sticks! Like the “Rennaissance” magazine he launched at UG, he directed a bi-weekly publication, “WILDCAT DREAMS” FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT!
But he’d been hired to boost the enrollment at Fort Valley. So after there was a 25 per cent enrollment drop after his first year, the University and Griffith parted ways in 2015 – two years before his contract expired!!
The folks in Georgia weren’t fooled a bit with Griffith’s hoopla and bells and whistles. We’ll have a “value for money” audit done on our AG. It’ll show that it’s time for Griffith to go!!
Never mind his YSM history!
…at Guyana Gold
Guyana Goldfields has been in the news for some time. First it was about the large quantities of gold they were exporting – boosting our GDP, but basically just paying wages to about 500 Guyanese, including the top brass of ACDA, for some obscure reason. Floated as a “penny stock” on the Canadian Stock Exchange, it rose to Cdn$9.60 per share, making a whole lotta insiders filthy rich. Anyhow, the stock tanked after 2016, falling to pennies per share once again!! You can imagine how many persons lost their shirts, along with the ACDA big wigs.
The founder was blamed for all sorts of skullduggery, even though he wasn’t the operational CEO, just “relations with the government”! He was thrown out, and a new board was installed, along with the ex-US Ambassador Holloway.
Well, the founder isn’t taking his ouster lightly. He’s blaming the present lot for the CN$1 billion loss in equity, and along with some other shareholders who own a total of over 5 per cent of the shares, is waging a shareholder rebellion.
Welcome to the “stock wars”!!
…at CJIA
The Auditor General’s Office is gonna be very busy in the next few months with its audit of where the US$150 million expended on CJIA went.
Hope his report comes out just before the elections!!
