Finance Minister Colm Imbert says he is not and cannot negotiate terms and conditions with UWI lecturers.

His declaration follows recent action by their union WIGUT, to settle salary negotiations for the period 2015 to 2017.

Today, Mr Imbert criticized recent statements on the matter, saying he has not engaged WIGUT or UWI regarding the negotiations.

He says this has never been done, as the Ministry does not employ the lecturers.

The Minister also dismissed a call from Opposition MP Rudy Indarsingh for the Finance Minister to take the matter to the Industrial Court saying, “Apart from the fact that the Minister of Finance is not the employer of the academic staff
at the UWI, and, therefore, would have no locus standi in any application made to the Industrial Court in this matter…”

Instead, Mr Imbert says since Government provides a subvention to the University, the Finance Minister’s only role is to advise UWI on how much funding the Government can afford to provide on an annual basis.

The subvention is currently more than $500 million annually.

Accordingly, he says Government has already indicated how much additional funding it can provide to settle the dispute, namely $79 million in backpay and $12 million per year in recurrent expenditure.

Mr Imbert says if the dispute resolution process arrives at a different amount, then UWI’s Administration will have to manage its resources carefully.