Garcia: UTT severance packages begin

EDUCATION Minister Anthony Garcia said the implementation of severance packages for fired University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) staff has begun.

He was responding to a question in the House yesterday on the status of the restructuring of UTT in light of the president of the board of governors statement on November 1, that UTT would not be able to continue operations beyond January 2018.

Garcia said UTT survived beyond 2018 partly because of its collection of GATE receipts of previous periods, cost reduction of payroll and operating expenses, and close management of its trade payables. He reported following an audit UTT was found to be overstaffed by 25 per cent and the additional staff were “superfluous.”

He said the ratio of non-academic staff to academic staff was 2:1 which was high by international standards while for efficiently-run universities that ratio was close to the reverse.

“In order to rationalise the ratio and provide the same level and quality of support non-academic staff will also have to be trimmed as part of the restructuring exercise at the university.” Garcia had previously told Parliament UTT 59 academic staff are to be dismissed, 57 of which have already received dismissal letters. In addition, 287 non-academic staff are to be dismissed.

Yesterday he said UTT has to undertake severance programme for academic and non-academic staff and on the academic side the implementation had already begun. He said for the non-academic staff (represented by the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union) discussions were continuing with the recognised majority union.