A flagship project of the APNU+AFC government appears to have been ended with the discontinuation of operations at the Bertram Collins Staff College.
Stabroek News understands that following the graduation of fourth batch of students from the College in December there has been no new recruitment and the 25 members of staff on Friday received letters terminating their services.
Stabroek News reached out to Minister of Public Service, Sonia Parag for a comment on the situation and was told that the issue would be publicly addressed after the presentation of the 2021 Budget to the National Assembly.
“I prefer not to comment on it. I prefer to speak on it after the budget has been read,” Parag said.
Her shadow on the Opposition benches Tabitha Sarabo-Halley was however quick to condemn the move.
According to Sarabo-Halley, the closure “is a reprehensible act of political spite and malice.”
“The closure of the Bertram Collins College of the Public Service is a clear indication that the PPP regime has no interest in a professional public service and no interest in the structured and planned preparation of ambitious young people for a career in the public service,” she said in a statement released yesterday.
The former minister went on to claim that “it is obvious is in spite of the PPP’s rhetoric, their only interest is in a politicized public service that they can emasculate, manipulate and control.”
The statement ended with a call for “right-thinking Guyanese to raise their voices against the targeting and suppression of the Guyana public service.”
The Bertram Collins Staff College was an initiative of former President David Granger who hailed its establishment as a response to a recommendation from the Commission of Inquiry into the Public Service for a professionally trained public sector.
Located at Ogle it offered a one-year course of study in areas such as Information Technology, Accounting, Budgeting, and the Legal System in Guyana, Language, Communication, Politics and International Relations.
In its first year there were 31 administrative and academic staff led by Senior Executive Director Col (ret’d) Lawrence Paul.
During the first graduation ceremony in 2017 Paul had announced that a permanent campus would be built at the Ogle location with a US$10M grant from the Government of China. This sum was also expected to cover the furnishing of what was to be a state-of-the-art college.
Paul had also informed that the bill governing the College was ratified by the Ministry of Legal Affairs and would be tabled in the National Assembly at its first sitting in 2018. The bill was expected to pave the way for the college becoming an autonomous entity.
Additionally he said that accreditation for the college from the University of Guyana was being pursued at the same time efforts are being made to satisfy the many requirements for accreditation standards
The bill was not tabled before the December 2018 no confidence motion toppled the APNU+AFC government.
