David Hinds recommends allocation of GOAL funds to UG, higher public servant salaries

Last Updated on Thursday, 5 February 2026, 21:12 by Writer

Working People’s Alliance (WPA) co-leader Dr David Hinds – under the umbrella of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) – on Wednesday recommended that the government allocate some of the GY$5.8 billion budgeted for the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) to the University of Guyana (UG) to avert a virtual collapse of that publicly funded institution.

“Mr Speaker, I urge our government to slash the GOAL budget and give half of those resources to the University of Guyana,” he said in his maiden speech to the National Assembly since the September 2025 general and regional elections.

UG has been allocated GY$14.5 billion, quite less than the more than GY$21 billion that had been requested although the student population that has grown astronomically since the government last year reintroduced free education at that institution.

Dr Hinds feared that UG, which was started by founder of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Dr Cheddi Jagan in 1963 as a few classes at Queen’s College and labeled then by critics as ‘Jagan night school’ may be at risk of insufficient funding.

“Is Jagan’s party not running the risk of turning the University of Guyana into another night school? Oh my God! We spend billions of dollars paying overseas universities in this GOAL scholarship while depriving our university of funds,” he told the House.

A former decades-long political science professor at Arizona State University, Dr Hinds said that as an educationist he knew that UG could provide some of the degrees that the GOAL scholarship is sending students abroad for.

Dr Hinds’ criticism of the budgetary allocation of the GOAL programme came three days after We Invest in Nationhood’s (WIN) shadow education minister Dr Gordon Barker questioned the management of that programme that the government had billed as one aimed at fast-tracking the education of Guyanese in several areas relevant to the immediate development needs of Guyana.

“The GOAL programme was sold to this nation as a transformational investment in education. Instead, it has become a symbol of poor planning, weak oversight, and unacceptable uncertainty for thousands of Guyanese,” Dr Barker said.

The WIN political newcomer also observed that there was no clear reporting on completion rates, accreditation standards, and employment outcomes. “Students have been left in limbo, institutions have changed without explanation, and this House has received no comprehensive impact assessment despite billions being allocated,” he said.

Minister of Education, Sonia Parag did not address Dr Barker’s criticisms but instead accused him of being hypocritical as he had been a beneficiary of the GOAL programme.

Public servant salaries

Turning his attention to the financial plight of public servants at a time of rising cost of living, the APNU MP said, for instance, many of the public servants who helped to put the GY$1.558 trillion package of revenues and expenditures for 2026 “do not see themselves in that budget”.

He noted that the minimum wage in the public service is GY$102,000 and GY$60,000 in the private sector. “In GY$1.5 trillion dollars, can we not find a place for the dignity of public servants? Let us put public servants first,” he said.

On Monday, public works minister Juan Edghill said GY$177 billion had been allocated in this year’s fiscal package for increased wages and salaries for the estimated 70,000 government employees.

APNU MP Ganesh Mahipaul, in his debate presentation, criticised Public Service and Government Efficiency Minister Zulfikar Ally for failing to address the plight of public servants in his support for the package.

Mr Mahipaul said Mr Ally’s focus was primarily on improving public service but not the workers who have to do so. “You said absolutely nothing about the actual public servants who deserve better than what they’re getting under your PPPC government,” said Mr Mahipaul who is also an executive member of the People’s National Congress Reform.

Among the things that he called for are an updating of the 1987 public service rules, revisiting of the “slavish” hours of work and an optional extension of the retirement age from 55 to 60.

Boasting that public servants’ salaries had increased from GY$39,000 in 2015 to GY$65,000 in 2020 during the APNU+Alliance For Change administration, he said today the PPPC administration inherited the 50 percent salary hike for senior ministers, added another 40 percent and taking an additional 10 percent increase.

“From 2020 to now, they are enjoying that 90 percent increase. Their salaries are in the millions of dollars and everytime they give the public servants a 10 percent, they tekkin it tuh and 10 percent on a $100,000 is not the same as 10 percent on a million dollars so they can live as fat cats and the ordinary people who have to deliver the service, they’re just simply skinning cats,” he said.

The public service minister, speaking before Mahipaul, said public servants’ minimum wage increased by 46 per cent since the PPP Civic returned to office in 2020. “Moreover, the overall public sector wage bill, which stood at $252 billion by the end of 2025, almost doubled what it was in 2020 at $127 billion. This reflects consistent annual salary increases.”