The battle lines are drawn over TT’s ghost university campus in Debe, and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar isn’t mincing words: “That campus will house what the government says it will house. The administration will have no say in that.”
In a fiery post-cabinet presser that felt more like a showdown, the PM slammed UWI’s sudden announcement that their new Global School of Medicine would open at the abandoned South campus in August. “It’s a total horror story,” she scoffed, referencing recent tours showing rusted infrastructure and jungle-like overgrowth.
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The Backstory
This saga began when the Debe campus was constructed under Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s administration between 2010-2015. Despite being completed in 2019, the facility has sat abandoned for years – a ghost campus slowly decaying in plain sight. Originally envisioned as a law school to relieve overcrowding at UWI’s St. Augustine campus, the site has instead become what Oropouche East MP Dr. Roodal Moonilal recently described as 75% “derelict” during his inspection tour, with entire sections overtaken by rust and vegetation.
Kamla’s Bombshells
The Prime Minister didn’t hold back during her fiery press conference. When addressing UWI’s sudden proposal to open a Global School of Medicine at the site, she scoffed: “Don’t we have the Couva hospital? That’s what that was for… Where you get this ‘global medicine’ from?” She completely dismissed UWI’s announced August opening timeline with “It will NOT happen in August. I don’t know who came up with that,” and issued a stark ultimatum to university administrators: “I’m warning UWI—don’t test me. I’ll take that campus back under government control.”
The Racism Allegation
In perhaps her most explosive moment, Persad-Bissessar suggested the campus’s decade-long mothballing stemmed from discrimination against South Trinidad residents. “They said, ‘That campus opening in Debe? No! Nothing for you,'” she claimed, arguing this “racist agenda” denied thousands of working-class students access to affordable higher education while forcing others to endure the costs and congestion of attending classes in St. Augustine.
The Road Ahead
The government now plans to revive the original vision for the campus while expanding its scope. Top priorities include finally establishing the long-promised law school, developing new programs in cutting-edge fields like AI and technology, and attracting international students to generate foreign exchange earnings. With the Prime Minister vowing to see the project through before her term ends, this educational white elephant may finally get its second chance.
