Orville Taylor | SLB money is sacrosanct

If you ask him whether or not he was involved in wrongdoing, the horseman former chairman of the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB) will say ‘neigh’. The entire board, headed by Dr St Aubyn Bartlett, has resigned under another cloud of impropriety, which seems to be one of the areas in which the administration is showing prosperity. What we know is that there was a retreat but there is little surrender as regards culpability.

A $2.5-million bill for a retreat is by any standard expensive. Mark you, it is not in the same league in a black panther party with oozing Petrojelly funds. However, the danger of messing with the cash flow of the SLB is greater than the board members and perhaps the Government itself can imagine.

Whatever the justification, it was another case of a minority decision. Bartlett admitted to my colleague host on RJR94FM’s Hotline that only four of the nine board members had been present.

It might be that the animal doctor thought that matters before his scrutiny are naturally ‘vetted’; and thus need no secondary accountability; but anything which subverts a process of transparency and good governance cannot be acceptable.

Moreover, it is also understood that the contract of the executive director (ED) was renewed under terms and conditions which did not have the oversight or approval of the board itself and which he concedes might have been wrong. The doctor took the ED’s case into his own hands without the backing of his colleagues. That is a hard pill to swallow.

‘PUNKING OUT’

Speaking on another radio programme on another radio station, and thus he might not have heard, a former member of the board took issue with him. He described the board as not being properly managed and not speaking tongue in cheek, considered Bartlett’s style of leadership as a little dictatorial although not manifestly corrupt. Of course, the member can be excused for not understanding that a dictatorial approach which disregards proper procedure and consultation is in itself a linchpin of corruption. For me, the alleged former member who hides under a cloak of anonymity is simply ‘punking out’.

If one has the moral fortitude to speak out against wrongdoings, then he must have the rest of anatomical support to step forward and be identified. Moreover, it is simply natural justice that an accused must be able to know who the accuser is, especially in matters where there is no direct threat to life such as homicide cases. Therefore, had this faceless and gutless tattletale attempted to speak to me on air regarding this matter, I would have dismissed him faster than a primary school at 2 p.m.

What is now clear is that the horseman accustomed to trophy races, lost when he went for cups at the SLB.

That Bartlett and the board stepped down is again a silver lining, because it points to decisive action by the finance minister and for that he must be commended. Who knows? Bartlett might rise again and be given a special committee to head for the uplift of vulnerable groups.

Yet, as I said at several seminars at the SLB which I presented a few years ago, the SLB is a major bulwark against the incidence of crime and violence in this society. I will write a follow-up article on another occasion with more supporting data. However, what the behavioural science research shows is that post-secondary education, and in particular tertiary-level education, reduces the likelihood of young men getting involved in gang activities and homicides.

Around 70 per cent of violent offenders are in the post-grade 11 cohort, and this is pretty much the same set of boys who are not enrolled in universities, community and teachers’ colleges and HEART. Youth are under serious pressure in this society, with the youth unemployment rate being more than twice the national average.

‘MINISTER OF MINDING’

In universities and colleges under the rubric of the Council of Community Colleges of Jamaica (CCCJ), male matriculation is between 15 and 30 per cent. Given the social pressures associated with maleness, the last thing that young men need is the inability of bright young minds to attend tertiary institutions after being accepted.

Females are more readily supported by their relatives, even when they have stubbed their toes and got pregnant. A female who decides to go back to college and asks her family for help, including day care, is more likely to get it and be seen as ambitious. A male in the similar situation has to become a ‘minister of minding’ and would hardly dare to go approach his uncle for help in buying a tin of ‘baby feedn’.

What we have not fully appreciated is that SLB funding has kept many young men from crossing the line into the dark side like Darth Vader. The studies have not been done in detail. However, sitting from the vantage point of a now veteran academic who has met and mentored scores of inner-city and deep rural youth here in the intellectual ghetto, I often thank God that they made it here. Trust me, many of them sing the song by Turbulence, “I could have been one of the most notorious.”

For years, the SLB has been underfunded and even with the conditions of loans, the poor bureau has to find ways of making ends meet. It does not need any set of managers or politicians to leach out the little tuppence which it has.

Read this and be scared. For every cent which is directed away from a potential beneficiary from the SLB, there is one potential recruit for the criminal underworld.

- Dr Orville Taylor is head of the Department of Sociology at the UWI, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.