Dominican PM denies misleading college students

Friday, May 21, 2004

ROSEAU, Dominica: Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has dismissed newspaper claims that he misled students of the Dominica State College in relation to a pledge he made in April this year to provide financial assistance to them.

The Prime Minister, stung by what he described as false and misleading claims made in the Chronicle newspaper about him, called a press conference on Monday to clear his name.

The article, emblazoned on the back page of the newspaper was captioned: ”PM Misleads Students”. Mr Skerrit, who is also acting Minister of Education refuted: “For anybody to ascribe any lies to me or to say that the PM misleads students is totally far from the truth… absolutely far from the truth.... the money has been in the treasury…I signed the warrant as the Minister of Finance. “

At the press conference the Prime Minister Skerrit revealed that since March 2004, he approved the sum of $50,000 to assist Dominican children attending the State College. He added that the Dominica State College wrote to the Ministry of Education on March 16th 2004 informing them of the list of students who are to receive assistance from the Ministry of Education.

Correspondence within the Ministry of Education on April 22nd 2004 also reveals information on the assistance to the Dominica State College students.

The Prime Minister said in light of all the facts, he was very much disturbed that the students still had difficulties accessing those resources. Mr Skerrit also revealed that, “a simple letter to the State College which basically states that the Ministry of Education shall meet the tuition fees of the following students and the amounts with regards to how much money the Ministry is meeting for some of the students who are having difficulties…. the money is in the treasury, the money has been in the treasury so all that had to be done was the transfer of the said amount to the state College consequent to the list of students approved….”

He told the assembled media that he would not allow any child to be thrown out of any institution in Dominica because the child cannot meet his or her tuition fees, adding that his government understands the importance of tertiary education to Dominica’s development.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister revealed that starting September 2004, $540,000 would be made available to go towards assisting students attending secondary school, assisting public officers who are pursuing studies at the UWI School of Continuing Studies and also assisting some of our students who are studying at overseas institutions. An additional $500,000 is also being made available for the Youth Employment Programme.

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