Editorial | Wrong committee for UWI report

WHILE THE decision by Jamaica’s Parliament to review the Byron Commission’s report on governance at The University of the West Indies (UWI) is welcomed, this newspaper does not believe that its timing is propitious, or that the matter is before a committee that can appropriately deal with, and, therefore, do justice to the issues it addresses.

We, therefore, at the risk of seeming invidious, suggest that Fayval Williams – the education minister, who, at our prompting, tabled the report – requests that Prime Minister Andrew Holness secure the abandonment of the January 12 sitting of the House’s Human Resources and Social Development Committee. She must also argue for the creation of the joint select committee of the House and the Senate to deal with the matter in the manner previously laid out by this newspaper.

Our position on the timing of the hearings has to do with this week’s revelation that the UWI’s vice-chancellor, Hilary Beckles, has launched an investigation into how the chancellor, Robert Bermudez and the University Council – the university’s highest decision-making body – last April handled his reappointment for another six years.

This investigation, and the manner in which Sir Hilary’s committee has proceeded, has been interpreted in many quarters as an open putsch against Mr Bermudez, a Trinidadian business magnate. The development has aggravated still-raw sores at the UWI, while deepening and widening the chasms at the institution. And it comes with great risk to the reputation and credibility of the UWI, which Caribbean governments, which own the university, should, as we suggested before, attempt to cauterise by imposing a truce on the combatants. In this regard, a delay in the hearings by the Jamaican parliamentary committee would result in a cooling-off process.

FAR MORE PROFOUND REASONS

The other reasons for suggesting the delay, and our call for a fundamental restructuring of the committee, are far more profound.

First, as ought to be widely known, this newspaper lacks confidence in the Human Resources and Social Development Committee’s chairman, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) politician Heroy Clarke, to, with either wisdom or skill, oversee any matter of the potential magnitude, sensitivity or importance of this one. No one should!

Indeed, Mr Clarke’s cringe-worthy display at those hearings of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee last year, when he and others, without grounds, and for seeming narrow political ends, attempted to undermine the auditor general, Pamela Monroe Ellis, remains the stuff of political nightmares. He has done nothing since then that makes him worthy of redemption.

Additionally, we believe that the matters raised in the UWI review panel, which was chaired by the distinguished Caribbean jurist, Sir Dennis Byron, are so wide and nuanced as to require in their exploration a breadth of skills and experience beyond what resides on Clarke’s committee.

Indeed, the Byron committee, among whose members were Bank of Jamaica Governor Richard Byles and Jamaican businesswoman and banker Jacqueline Sharp, made two fundamental observations about the UWI:

• That there is an existential financial crisis; and

• That it has a byzantine governance structure that narrowly concentrates power, and is often unresponsive to complaints, or to proposals for change.

THE PRIMARY SUGGESTION

Their primary suggestion for dealing with the fiscal problem was to double, to 40 per cent, the proportion of economic cost students should contribute to their education. This would be accompanied by easier access to student loans and easier payback schemes. Sir Hilary, however, believes that the university can surmount its financial challenges by becoming more entrepreneurial and containing costs.

With respect to the governance structure, the Byron committee proposed a series of reforms, including one that would create an executive committee of the Council, which would be more nimble and closer to the operational functions of the university than the Council’s full body. Some critics interpreted this move as an attempt to wrest power from Sir Hilary, as well as claimed that the whole governance review was a ruse to remove him as vice-chancellor.

We believe that the various visions for the management and financing of the UWI are worthy of serious but respectful public debate. The Jamaican Parliament, representing a large portion of the UWI’s constituency, is a good place for that discourse. However, as we said over the summer, the approach to any such hearings should be different from the norm for parliamentary committees.

Obviously, the report’s authors, and the UWI’s management, should be invited to address the broader contextual frame of the document, its recommendations and what, from either perspective, is or is not feasible.

Further, the sessions of our proposed Joint Select Committee on The University of the West Indies should be open to stakeholders, in or outside the region, who wish to make written contributions or to appear before the committee virtually. The UWI is too important an institution to the Caribbean for its future to command anything less than full, and serious, engagement – not with protagonists facing each other with blunderbusses.