ST ANDREW, Jamaica — The University of the West Indies (UWI) has refused to appear before the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of Parliament to answer questions about the use of Government subvention in the running of its operations.

The Government’s support to the Mona campus of the UWI is $8.3 billion for this fiscal year.

The PAAC had in August asked Permanent Secretary in the ministry of education, Dr Maurice Smith to ask the UWI to appear before the committee, but when the Dr Smith and his team came to Gordon House yesterday, it was with a letter from the UWI, stating its reasons for not showing up.

“The university is in receipt of a letter dated August 12, 2016 addressed to you (Dr Smith) from the committee clerk…which purports to request the university appear before the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee …please be advised that the UWI is a public autonomous regional educational institution which serves 17 countries in the Caribbean. The university was established by Royal Charter in 1962. The university therefore has to be distinguished from other agencies of your ministry,” university letter said. 

The letter signed by registrar C William Iton, and copied to Vice Chancellor, bursar, and Principal drew reference to a legal authority from the Attorney General’s in January 2007, to support that position.

The  UWI acknowledged that that the government has a right to know how its funds are spent, but recommended that the permanent secretary seek the information requested for the committee, through the ministry’s representative on the university’s finance and general purposes committee.

The university had previously submitted a report on its expenditures to the committee, but has since withdrawn the document. 

Meanwhile PAAC chairman Dr Wykeham McNeill said he was perturbed by the position taken by the tertiary institution. “What this letter is stating I that they do not report as a regional organisation to the Parliament of Jamaica. I have some concerns, in general principle as a start. Who then do they report to? It’s not an insubstantial amount of money,” he argued.

Alphea Saunders