…and waving
OK…Let’s see if your Eyewitness gets this straight. First, Foreign Minister Greenidge (is he now actually living in “foreign”?) complains that over 80% of our UG graduates have absconded the jurisdiction for presumably greener pastures abroad. Now that’s a “butch”, isn’t it? While there HAVE been complaints about the quality of our graduates, they’re all we have when it comes to higher education. Meaning having a bit more than rudimentary knowledge about the things we need for our development.
After all this is the purpose of “education” in the modern world: to churn out folks with the knowledge to produce commodities that can be sold for money. And which therefore makes the world go ‘round.
So, dear reader, you ask what about “lichricher” and art and music and such like that are also taught at the University? Did you really miss all the pontifications on “cultural industries”? When you learn music nowadays, it’s to produce commodities named “CD’s” with copyrights!
Anyhow you get the point, nuh? So your Eyewitness moves on to his next point…rather the next point another Minister of presumably the same APNU/AFC government made. That the government might just WAIVE interests on the $10 billion the deadbeat UG graduates owe on loans going back to 1994, when the programme was launched. The figures supplied by the forensic audit of UG Student Loan Agency revealed that 69.4% of the students loans – (17,000+!!!) issued during that time were delinquent.
So this Eyewitness has some questions. He always thought UG graduates couldn’t wave goodbye to our muddy shores until they paid off their UG loans. So could the Minister – who plans to give debt relief exceeding the Paris Club’s terms – please tell us whether any graduates who gravitated “foreign” are also getting the free lunch? And the answer better be a resounding “no!”
But your Eyewitness suspects it’s not…since only some 488 local names were published in what he foolishly thought was a “name and shame” manoeuvre to get the deadbeats to cough up. So not only is the government gonna let off the hook all the dastardly departed who acquired their education at our bargain basement prices and are hauling in the big bucks abroad – it’s going to do the same for the big time lawyers, magistrates, and even judges!
Where’s the justice? And what kind of message does this send to the rest of society that subsidises UG with their hard earned tax dollars? Shouldn’t we start questioning of what use is an institution to us when 82% of its products are of no use to us?
And the remainder are deadbeats?!
…legality on SOCU and SARU
And the farce about SOCU and SARU inevitably degenerates into a tragedy for rule of law. When the APNU/AFC Government deployed the former (created by the PPP) and created the latter, you’d think organisations intended to keep the citizenry on the straight and narrow, would themselves set an example of probity and lawfulness, nuh?
Well, you just wasted a thought. The first mission of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) was to seize papers from NICIL!! And here your Eyewitness thought Congressional hearings and “The Godfather” had taught him what “organised crime” was all about! Not to mention SOCU was supposed to augment the investigations of the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU), formed out of the AML/CTF mandate! And then it was deployed by the GDF – not the Police Force under which it was constituted.
So we’re to believe it’s all straightened now? Yes…Santa Claus is real!
The Stolen Assets Recovery Unit (SARU) – deployed without a legal mandate – is now “legal” because its operating out of OP?
Talk about bootstrapping!!
…sanity
Your Eyewitness learnt a new word as he forced himself to watch the proceedings of the Republican Convention that finally confirmed Donald Trump as their Presidential candidate.
“Screed”. It means a long, boring, and tedious speech!!
