No exit bonus for UTT’s president

THE EDITOR: It is now official that the Iraqi president of our national university, the University of TT (UTT), has resigned.

I make some recommendations for the context of his exit from our country.

It is very simple. When people retire or resign from UTT, they leave with nothing. There is no pension, no bonus, no special extra payments. If they are under the scheme in which their gratuity was withheld until fulfilment of contract, then they get that when their contracts end and are not renewed. They don’t get it if they don’t stay to contract end.

This is not and should not be made to be a special case. If he has resigned, he must go with nothing. They could make a concession and pay him his gratuity, even though he did not fulfil his contract, but nothing else.

There must be no argument that UTT prefers Al Zubaidy’s “room to his company.” In other words, they cannot claim to be acting in the best interests of UTT or of the country in paying this non-national several months of salary he did not earn, giving him essentially a paid vacation.

One cannot reward a person you want gone. That is extortion. If you claim there is an advantage to paying someone for their absence, what does that suggest? It suggests their presence was not beneficial.

Further, whatever monies owed to him should be paid in the currency of this land. UTT has several nationals who were living abroad and who returned to TT to serve UTT, some expecting to leave again when they were done. When they leave or, in the case of those who left already, will or did UTT facilitate payments in foreign currency for monies owed such as vacation pay, gratuity, or final month’s pay? Probably not and definitely not in some cases.

UTT’s president or any other foreign worker is not a special case in that they must be rewarded because they were “kind” enough to come here and take our money. We were told they were coming here to “help us develop.” As insulting as that was, it would be even more insulting if our national funds are used to treat that statement as if it were valid by giving this man any form of exit “bonus.”

FATIMAH MOHAMMED

Cunupia