Nakhid: Where the money gone for education?

“Where has the money gone?”

This question was asked by Opposition Senator David Nakhid regarding the $2.3 billion allocated and spent by the People’s National Movement Government on projects to repair or construct primary and secondary schools for the period 2016 to 2023.

The average spent on schools annually was $287.5 million.

Nakhid raised the issue during a UNC press conference yesterday.

He said, that while the United Nations has been driving home the importance of education, the Government has “done the worst possible job” when it comes to the future of our children by reducing GATE funds, removing educational programmes and crashing the laptop programme.

In February, Nakhid said he visited some schools that were in disrepair and saw school projects that were left abandoned.

Two of the secondary schools he paid attention to were Mt Hope and St Joseph.

He said Mt Hope has been falling apart while St Joseph Secondary, which cost taxpayers millions of dollars, was abandoned in 2015 and stripped of its roof, windows and door by “pipers and thieves.”

These two schools, he said, were eyesores.

St Joseph is now a haven for criminals and drug addicts.

Nakhid said while the Government spent $2.3 billion on schools, Mt Hope and St Joseph were earmarked for rehabilitation works but from their appearance, were neglected.

These two areas, he said, were in urgent need of schools to mitigate against crime and criminality.

Nakhid pulled the $2.3 billion figure from an article in yesterday’s Sunday Guardian.

The article showed that Mt Hope was expected to cost $174.7 million while in 2021 the Ministry of Finance entered into a contract with MTS for the provision of project management services for the completion of construction and outfitting of St Joseph Secondary.

Included in that listing for repairs, Nakhid said was Piccadilly Government Primary School which was closed four years ago, but he said this was never done.

“But money has been allocated there. So where the money gone? So we have a government here, obviously, quite comfortable in not only misallocating, mismanaging and engaging in blanket corruption when it comes to education,” he alleged.

Nakhid said that while the PNM government has been telling the country that they are strapped for funds, “We are seeing a big pronouncement of $2.3 billion in school upgrades in eight years.”

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