Robinson blasts Gov’t for upside-down logic in USF Wi-Fi spending cuts
Published:Friday | March 12, 2021 | 12:21 AMRomario Scott/Gleaner Writer
Opposition Spokesman on Finance Julian Robinson railed against a plan by the Universal Service Fund (USF) to outfit only two sites in each of the 63 constituencies across the island with Internet access in the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
Initially, the USF had proposed that three sites in each constituency would be established and asked for the members of parliament to indicate the preferred locations.
However, Robinson said that the USF had written to say that they were revising the proposal because of budgetary cuts.
He described it is “upside-down logic” while delivering his maiden contribution to the Budget Debate in Parliament yesterday.
“Beyond connecting the schools, while kids are at home and they don’t have access to data (mobile Internet service), they can go to the community centre and get the free Wi-Fi,” he pointed out.
“In a time of crisis where so many of our students don’t have access to online education, how can we choose to cut something like this? How can we cut this?” Robinson asked as some of his Opposition colleagues cried, “Shame!”.
The USF has now asked each member of parliament to find $2.5 million to fund the third site, Robinson told Parliament.
Robinson speculated that all 63 members of parliament would have received the letter as he worked out how much more it would cost to fund a third site in each constituency.
“It is upside-down logic that for $160 million, we would not provide access for poor kids to get online and access online education. This is wrong! And we can’t say we can’t find the money. This cannot make sense in this crisis that we are cutting back, having made the commitment in January,” the opposition spokesman contended.
The USF falls within the Daryl Vaz-headed Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology and has responsibility for deploying affordable information communication technologies through broadband services across the island.
It is projecting a deficit of $1.45 billion in the upcoming fiscal year.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, classes at most schools across the island have been moved online.
However, a significant number of public schools use Google Classroom, which is accessible free of cost via mobile devices without a data plan, through a partnership between the education ministry and telecommunications providers Digicel and FLOW.