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When I was growing up, I was taught that one must always give “Jack his jacket and Jim his waistcoat” and “one must give praise where praise is due”! These two sayings directed us to correctly attribute achievements and to give due recognition to a person’s achievements. Unfortunately, these two pieces of folk advice seem to have gone through the chute over time.
Many seem quite comfortable appropriating the work of others or erasing or downplaying their significant contribution, while explicitly or implicitly attributing this to a person or persons who have no tangential connection to the work. The recent groundbreaking ceremony for the state-of-the-art science/ agri-business park at Dukes Plantation on lands donated by the Edghill family is a case in point.
The proposed park is the brainchild of Professor Leonard O’Garro, the former Director of The Centre for Food Security and Entrepreneurship (CFSE) at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies. Professor O’Garro conceptualised the idea for the modern agri-business park and single-handedly moved the idea to a fully developed project able to attract funding of US$34 million from the Government of the People’s Republic of China through the Barbados Government. This project was in the making since 2014 and it received planning approval in 2017. It is a credit to Professor O’Garro’s intellectual depth, foresight and tenacity that he was able to bring this project to a stage where it can now be implemented, especially when he had to operate in an environment that did not always provide robust support to advance the project. Without his leadership of this initiative and the team of professionals he was able to assemble, there would be no agri-business park to break ground for! His efforts are widely and publicly documented.
Therefore, it is an affront that a groundbreaking ceremony for this project could be held, and Professor O’Garro’s role in this project did not even merit a mention. The land at Dukes Plantation was officially transferred to UWI in September 2012 and after two years, there was still no credible proposal by the UWI for the use of this land. The recruitment of Professor O’Garro was the turning point.
For the record, there would have been no agri-business park project if Professor O’Garro was not recruited by the then Principal, Hilary Beckles, to head the CFSE. Let’s hope the current leadership of the project is imbibed with Professor O’Garro’s vision for its successful implementation.
by ADINA TRIM
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