– no consultation held with the Union about Teachers Revolving Fund

By Kristen Macklingam

Over $200 million that was allocated for the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) Revolving Fund which would have allowed a number of teachers throughout the country to construct their houses has been returned to the National Treasury. This is according to GTU General Secretary Coretta McDonald, who told Guyana Times on Saturday that at present, her Union is uninformed as to what is happening with regards to this Fund. “When we enquired about this money, we were told that the $200 million plus, it was returned to the Treasury. As it is right now, the GTU is not aware of what is happening because we would have made enquiries. We would have spoken to the new administration with regards to having this project come on stream, having the house lots issued to teachers, but so far nothing is forthcoming,” she said. Coretta stated that with regards to the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government’s declaration that teachers would be benefiting from a professional housing scheme, the GTU has not been notified about the criteria for this programme, since no consultation was held with the Teachers Union to address this issue. “I think it very distasteful and somewhat disrespectful when these ministers go out there and make all these broad statements and they tie organisations to them without even giving the organisation a call to say ‘look we are doing A,B,C and D and we are including you’. GTU has not been called on any such and so we have no idea as to what, when, how and what the criteria is going to be. As it is right now, the GTU according to our agreement which ends in December of this year, it has one part there that speaks about houselots being awarded to teachers and monies for housing revolving projects… We had over $200 million in a bank account that was supposed to be used to fund the housing project,” Coretta explained. According to the GTU General Secretary, the process for the housing project that had been catered for would have ensured that selected teachers in every region be awarded $2 million as a loan. “$2 million because it is a revolving fund and of course there was a criterion, a list of conditions that was set up as to teachers would have been identified by their branches… GTU has 42 branches which we operate from, so in every branch we try to ensure that teachers benefit. So names of teachers would have been submitted to central GTU from their branches and as long as a teacher has a land, a transport, a title, a deed, with his or her name on that, then that automatically qualifies a teacher,” she further explained. Guyana Times was told that in addition to this, the teacher must be a ‘financial member’ of the GTU, and the criterion that was put in place did not require a teacher to have children or be married. “As long as you had a piece of land registered under your name then fine. The hiccup in that, with regards to getting that off, was that we couldn’t find a lending organisation, a bank, or any other organisation to come on board to administer this project, in terms of giving the monies out and ensuring that every month teachers repay whatever sum would have been required of them,” she added. (kristenm@guyanatimesgy.com)