Former senior Economist at the United Nation in New York Kittitian born Ms. Willa Franks- Liburd is calling on the Team Unity Government (TUG) to implement measures to deal with the situation at BHS. Franks- Liburd called in to Freedom Fm popular Issues program on Monday indicating that it was time to address certain basic core principles at the heart of the BHS matter.
In particular Franks- Liburd said much more was needed at this stage than a retreat of BHS stake holders. Liburd singled out the conflict of interest situations which continue unchecked at the BHS where the Principal of the school Ron Collins, is also the president of the Teachers Union.
Franks-Liburd said Collins is there representing his employer the government and at the same times as Union president he is mediating matters for the BHS staff. Liburd called on TUG to change that conflicting problem. Linked to that is the problems relating to the location of the school.
Franks- Liburd called on the TUG to make a public announcement on the new site for the school as the BHS children have been cramped and confined in a small area for too long, an area that also includes Beach Allen Primary and the Washington Archibald High School students. Liburd said the 2015 budgetary allocation of $10 million for the BHS could not build a new school and had been utilized on the transfer of students in temporary housing facilities.
Franks- Liburd wondered what the budgetary allocation at the end of 2016 would be to build a new BHS in 2017 and called on the TUG to build a new school on the grounds of the BHS, dismantling the present buildings which were deemed unfit for occupation by the present government.
Liburd said in her humble view it was time to identify a site and move expeditiously to put things in place. Franks- Liburd said the condemned BHS site is the best site for the school.
Willa Margaret Rose Franks-Liburd was awarded the Medal of Honour for Service to the Nation in the Diaspora in 2009.
Ms Franks-Liburd has worked as a Research Economist with the Caribbean Development Bank and at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank where she was Assistant Director of Bank Supervision for some nine years. She became an International Civil Servant at the United Nations in 1985, initially assigned to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva, Switzerland, and she eventually moved to Headquarters in 2002. She currently serves as Programme Officer in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General