President College being used for prostitution purposes!

It seems normal that government bashing has become the pillar that justifies the very existence of certain media houses. These folks will jump on anything!
Within this respect, the publicity whores have once again sought to use a few minor issues at President College for prostitution purposes and the Stabroek News is the chief prostitute.

The amount of coverage given by Stabroek and their cronies to a sit-in by teachers at President College over their demands for a 5% retroactive payment, improved water situation, refurbishing of staff rooms and the complete overhaul of the Home Economics and Science Departments is simply amazing, especially since the Ministry is engaging the GTU (the union representing the teachers) regarding these very matters.

In a recent interview the Minister of Education disputed that the teachers did not receive the additional five percent for 2008, explaining that it was catered for under the Ministry’s agreement with the GTU as the recognised union. However, in December an additional five percent was agreed on and it is this amount that they haven’t received since it is under active consideration by the Ministries of Education and Finance.
The education minister explained that there has been some delay in finalizing a decision because of the various benefits received by PC teachers. “All teachers are receiving what is known as the duty allowances of $5000 to $6000 per month and a housing allowance of $2000 per month, also some of the senior staff receive 25% allowances on their salary…so we wanted to look very closely at what is taking place and who should benefit from the 5% in the light of these various allowances,”
The Minister also acknowledged that water supply has always been a problem at the school and said that provisions have been made in the 2009 budget for more water tanks which are expected to be available in time for the next school year. “The long term objective to solve this problem would be to drill a new well but this would be too costly. To drill a new well would cost about $80M to $90M and we don’t have that kind of money so we have to work with Guyana Water Incorporated to solve this problem,”

Stabroek News, however, sought to place all sorts of spins on what they alluded to as being the government's willful neglect of the institution and withholding of much needed financial resources even though Government has expended significant sums of money on the institution over the years. In fact the expenditure on the school was $163M in 2007, $168M in 2008 and in 2009, $186M. In addition, a dormitory was completed in 2008 at a cost of $84M, it said.