UTT chairman receiving $10,000 monthly pending CPO decision

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe is cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing $10,000 a month as the Gov­ern­ment awaits a de­ter­mi­na­tion from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) on his re­mu­ner­a­tion for the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man po­si­tion.

The dis­clo­sure was made by Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion and Skills Train­ing Min­is­ter Pro­fes­sor Prakash Per­sad dur­ing Tues­day’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee ex­am­i­na­tion of the 2027 Bud­get in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Per­sad ex­plained that al­though Cud­joe has been ap­point­ed ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the state-fund­ed uni­ver­si­ty, he is cur­rent­ly be­ing paid on­ly in his ca­pac­i­ty as chair­man.

The is­sue arose when St Ann’s East MP and for­mer Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly ques­tioned the $178 mil­lion sub­ven­tion al­lo­cat­ed to UTT.

Gads­by-Dol­ly first asked whether the al­lo­ca­tion was be­ing used to pay mem­bers of the uni­ver­si­ty’s board.

“Is that sub­ven­tion used to pay the UTT Board?” she asked.

Per­sad con­firmed that board mem­bers were paid from the uni­ver­si­ty’s sub­ven­tion.

The Op­po­si­tion MP then asked how much of the an­nu­al al­lo­ca­tion was be­ing used to com­pen­sate Cud­joe.

“And how much of that sub­ven­tion is used to pay the salary of the Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man for the year?” she asked.

Per­sad said Cud­joe was not yet re­ceiv­ing re­mu­ner­a­tion specif­i­cal­ly at­tached to his ex­ec­u­tive chair­man po­si­tion.

“Present­ly, the Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man has not been paid as re­mu­ner­a­tion. He’s been paid as chair­man,” the Min­is­ter said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion, ask­ing whether that meant Cud­joe was re­ceiv­ing no salary.

“He’s not be­ing paid a cent? So, you are say­ing that the Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of the UTT at­tracts no salary?”

“I did not say that,” Per­sad replied.

He ex­plained that the uni­ver­si­ty was await­ing guid­ance from the CPO be­fore de­ter­min­ing the re­mu­ner­a­tion for Cud­joe’s ex­ec­u­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

“Right now, we are wait­ing word from the CPO to set his re­mu­ner­a­tion. But in the mean­while, he’s chair­man, he has been ap­point­ed chair­man, and he’s be­ing paid re­mu­ner­a­tion for chair­man,” Per­sad said.

Asked how much Cud­joe was re­ceiv­ing in that ca­pac­i­ty, Per­sad dis­closed that the amount was $10,000 a month.

The dis­clo­sure comes against the back­drop of claims made by the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) in Au­gust that Cud­joe was earn­ing more than $100,000 month­ly, while some UTT work­ers were re­ceiv­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4,000 a month amid a long­stand­ing wage dis­pute.