MP: Proposed UTT retrenchment stab in the back

COUVA South MP Rudy Indarsingh has said the announcement by Education Minister Anthony Garcia that 244 workers are to be retrenched from the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) is another stab in the back to the people of TT, the workers and the trade union movement.

Indarsingh recalled that almost a year ago to this date Garcia promised there would be no retrenchment of UTT workers, “even as the Finance Minister beamed artificially that the PNM had set the country on to a path of economic prosperity for all and boasted that he could see 'clearly now' and a 'turnaround'was in store for all to benefit from.”

In the Parliament, last Friday, in response to a question from former tertiary education minister Fazal Karim about possible staff cuts at UTT, Garcia said some 244 people had been identified by the board for retrenchment this year as the university restructures.“It is either the government is lying brazenly to the country about the outcome of its fiscal policies, or it is lying brazenly about the retrenchment of UTT,” Indarsingh deduced.

Accusing the government of backstabbing the country, Indarsingh questioned why workers are being sent home if the economy is recovering.

He said in the past three years under the People’s National Movement government, 50,000-plus workers have lost their jobs, in comparison to the Kamla Persad-Bissessar government, which created 55,000 jobs against a background of global economic meltdown.

“The Rowley-led administration continues to stab the back of its supporters and the country, by dangling political promises and false accounts of success, while sending people away from their jobs, which has caused tremendous pain, and trauma to the point where breadwinners are no longer able to put food on the table, send their children to school, pay mortgages on their homes and vehicles and the health needs of their dependants.”

Saying there is a relationship between sending home workers and strange commercial transactions, giving as examples the purchase of Massy Communications and the closure of Petrotrin, Indarsingh said it leads one to wonder if government intends to sell UTT and its assets.

He suggested that if UTT was in financial difficulties, government could have adjusted its spending priorities and diverted the $115 million it spent on a stadium in Diego Martin to invest in UTT and its workers.

“Additionally, the question must be asked: why did the government strangle the day-to-day functioning of UTT by deliberately transferring over $324 million from its account into eTeck’s flagship projects at the Tamana Intech Park? “Government cannot be trusted. Workers must stop allowing the PNM to fool them as the PNM continues to set the economic climate to peddle someone else’s agenda and seek someone else’s interest at the expense of workers, the labour movement and its citizens."