Radhica De Silva
Senior Multimedia Reporter
radhica.sookraj@guardian.co.tt
Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal is calling for a full investigation into the maintenance and use of the University of the West Indies (UWI) South Campus in Debe, which he says cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion but remains mostly unoccupied and in disrepair.
Speaking after a tour of the facility on Tuesday, Dr Moonilal said he felt "angry and disappointed" by its condition. He was joined by UWI St Augustine Principal Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, Education Minister Professor Prakash Prasad, Oropouche West MP Dr Lackram Bodoe, and other university officials.
“It was a horrific experience, in a certain way, to see the state of disrepair after ten years—the horrific condition of some areas of this campus,” Moonilal said.
He described the 100-acre property as overgrown in parts, with rusting railings, a dry Olympic-sized swimming pool, and derelict sporting facilities. He said the cricket pavilion was abandoned and overrun by bush.
“There are now a lot of corbeaux using the facility as a resting place. It is just horrible to see,” he said.
Moonilal blamed the deterioration on the PNM government’s decision to terminate the maintenance contract for the campus, which was built under the former People's Partnership administration. It was originally intended to house a new Faculty of Law.
He pointed out that except for a few Roytec classes and brief use as a COVID-19 isolation centre in 2020, the campus had seen no significant activity in years.
Restoring the facility, he said, would take considerable effort and funding.
On Monday, UWI Principal Prof Rose Marie Antoine announced that the Debe campus would become home to UWI’s new Global School of Medicine (GSM), which targets international students seeking a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree.
She said applications for the programme are already open and that major upgrades are planned “to support the nation’s education, skills development, and research goals.”
Despite this new direction, Moonilal insisted that the original vision for the campus must be preserved.
“It was never intended to be a global medical science facility or a centre for medical teaching and so on. We built a hospital in San Fernando—a teaching hospital—for that purpose. The Debe campus was originally marked for a law faculty. There’s a moot court here that is on par with, if not better than, any facility in the Caribbean,” he said.
Moonilal stressed he was not criticising university officials but said the government and UWI must engage in serious dialogue about the campus’s future.
He said he will raise the matter in Parliament and called for transparency and accountability in the use of public assets.
Construction of the Debe campus began in 2012 with a projected cost of $499 million and a completion target of 2014. Initially intended for the Faculty of Law, plans later shifted. In 2019, UWI announced that the Faculty of Medical Sciences would take over the site. In 2023, then-Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said the campus would become a medical school, with partial funding from a proposed $330 million bond.
