February 2015


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Pro Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal of The University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine, Professor Clement Sankat described it as an “emotional” day as he signed the MoU between the St. Augustine campus and ANSA McAL in December 2014. The event signalled a deepening of ties between ANSA McAL and The UWI with the launch of the Guardian Media School of Journalism, the Anthony N. Sabga School of Entrepreneurship and the reopening of the ANSA McAL Psychological Research Centre.

Mr A. Norman Sabga, Chairman and Chief Executive of the ANSA McAL group traced the ties between the university and ANSA McAL to 1989 when ANSA McAL funded a building that housed the ANSA McAL Psychological Research Centre. He credited the good work that Behavioural Sciences Professor Derek Chadee was doing as the reason the ANSA McAL Psychological Research Centre had outgrown its space and needed a new home. He also highlighted the UWI-ANSA McAL partnership as being responsible for churning out prize-winning Laureates through the Anthony Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence. He even looked to his own corporation as a living example of being part of the UWI family since “over 90% of the executives are UWI alums.”

Mr. Sabga’s appreciation of The UWI as the “intellectual brain of the country” was concretised when he spoke about the launch of the Guardian Media School of Journalism set for construction in 2015 as a place that could be “a huge development for the growth of the media in video, print and voice.”

In his speech, the Campus Principal passionately spoke about this day as the “beginning of putting a dream and vision into reality and execution.” He too spoke about The UWI and ANSA McAL’s longstanding relationship and the privilege it was to bestow upon Anthony Sabga, a Doctor of Laws Degree Honoris Causa and for Mr. Norman Sabga to be a member of the University’s Campus Council. He expressed his heartfelt thanks for the donation by ANSA McAL and looked forward to the new journalism programme that would be created for the Guardian School of Journalism.

The gift ANSA McAL is giving the UWI was deemed the “largest benefaction given by any of our private sector, including the multinationals, to the UWI, St. Augustine Campus” by Professor Sankat. He saw it as representing a coming of age of the Private Sector in terms of contributing to The UWI similar to Universities in North America and Canada where many of the names on buildings were from members of the private sector.

“In Trinidad and Tobago and the region as a whole, we have been looking too much to the state for leadership in almost all Sectors of our society’s development. While it is important for Government to protect the vulnerable in our society, its main role should be to create an enabling environment that supports Private Sector led growth, productivity and competitiveness,” he said.

Professor Sankat remarked on the current economic climate and the falling prices for oil and gas saying “it is time Trinidad and Tobago finally wakes up to the dramatically shift gears as to the direction to develop our economy and society. What obtains at present is unsustainable.”