By Andre Bagoo Tuesday, December 1 2009

click on pic to zoom in

GRANTS for persons studying law, nursing, oceanography, sports management, accounting, dentistry and even for a person studying for a pilot’s licence are among a list of scholarships awarded by the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs over a period of five years, documents released by the Government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) show.

A list of scholarships awarded by the Culture Ministry was last month released under the Act, notwithstanding the prior refusal of Culture Minister Marlene Mc Donald to do so when she was asked to provide the information in the Senate in 2008.

Among the list, extracts of which have been obtained by Newsday, are: an award valued at $72,600 for a student to pursue professional law studies at the Wolverhampton University, United Kingdom (UK); an award of $50,560 for another to pursue a masters degree in sports management from the University of San Francisco in the United States (US); another valued at $165,600 for the pursuit of a degree in oceanography at the South Hampton University, also in the UK; one for $20,000 for a person to obtain a private pilot’s licence from Briko Air Services Limited, Couva; another award valued at $12,500 for computing studies and another valued at $63,200 for dentistry studies at Howard University in the US. The list covers the years 2003 to 2007.

On July 1, 2008, in response to two questions in the Senate filed by Senator Wade Mark, Mc Donald refused to provide a list of persons awarded a total of approximately $45 million in scholarships by her ministry, arguing that she was not able to do so because of the privacy provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

“In accordance with the provisions of section 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, the names of persons who have benefitted from such financial assistance from the State...and the financial assistance provided to each person are regarded as personal information within the meaning of the Act,” Mac Donald then said. “As a consequence, regrettably, the minister is unable to provide the information requested.”

Subsequently Devant Maharaj, of the Indo-Trinbago Equality Council (ITEC), applied under the Freedom of Information Act to the Ministry of Culture for a list of the names of all persons awarded scholarships. The ministry refused and Maharaj took the matter to court. On December 9, 2008 High Court judge Justice Carol Gobin granted ITEC leave to challenge the ministry’s refusal to disclose the information.

There were then nine case management hearings up until last month when on November 9 attorneys for the ministry finally agreed to disclose a list of hundreds of names of scholarship winners, their course of study and the amount they were awarded. On November 17, the court ordered the Government to pay legal costs. While the ministry was asked under the FOI application to reveal the criteria for the award of its scholarships, to date it still has not done so. “What this list reveals is that these scholarships were basically a virtual slush fund for political patronage,” Anand Ramlogan, attorney for ITEC, said yesterday.

Mark yesterday said he will be in communication with Senate President Danny Montano over the release of the information which was not provided to Parliament last year.

“If a government department is forced under the peril of court action to reveal information that they ought to have revealed as a matter of duty and responsibility to the Parliament, that is, in my view, equivalent to total disrespect and is an insult to the Parliament and the Senate. I am flabbergasted that a government has been able to, in a contemptuous way, turn its back on the Parliament on matters of national importance and interest involving millions and millions of taxpayers dollars.”

Constitutional expert Reginald Dumas yesterday warned that Mc Donald’s conduct raises serious questions about the Government’s attitude to responding to parliamentary questions and its own transparency or lack thereof. “It is even worse that the Government conceded the court case over the release of the information,” he said. “Where is the trust if the minister can make a statement like she did last year and now has to reveal the very information that she said she could not reveal?”