The University of the South Pacific — one of only two regional universities in world — is facing a “gathering storm” over leadership, a management crisis and a looming strike, reports Islands Business.

In the six-page cover story in the latest edition of the regional news magazine this week, IB reports that pay demands by the 12-nation institution “headline other contentions such as the number of unfilled vacancies and the strain that the unions say it’s causing staff”.

The magazine also reported concerns about the “diminishing presence of Pacific Island academics” at what is a regional institution with 30,000 students representing Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

The world’s other regional university is Jamaica-based University of the West Indies with five campuses in 18 countries and 50,000 students.

Another factor at USP is the “absence of female academics, and questions over the way some key contracts have been handled by management”.

Staff say there are no longer any female professors on the Pacific university’s staff and the institution recently failed to renew the contract of Nobel Prize-winning academic Dr Elisabeth Holland, formerly professor of ocean and climate change and the longtime director of USP’s Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD), in controversial circumstances.

She had been one of USP’s most distinguished staff members and a key Pacific climate crisis voice in global forums.

Plunged into crisis
“In February 2021, the University of the South Pacific (USP) was plunged into crisis when vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia was unceremoniously thrown out of Fiji following a middle-of-the-night raid on his campus residence, accused by the then [FijiFirst] government of Voreqe Bainimarama of breaching the country’s immigration laws,” wrote the magazine’s Fiji correspondent Joe Yaya, himself a former graduate of the university who was a member of the award-winning USP student journalism team covering the George Speight attempted coup in May 2000.

“Within months of taking up the job in 2019, a bombshell report by Ahluwalia had alleged widespread financial mismanagement within the university under former administrations. It triggered an independent investigation by New Zealand-based accounting firm BDO and Ahluwalia’s eventual expulsion from Fiji.

“Three years later, USP finds itself beset by a host of new problems, most prominent among them an overwhelming vote this month by staff across Fiji (97 percent of academic staff and 94 percent of administration and support personnel) to go on strike over pay issues.”

Some of the concerns about pay and appointments are shared by key members of the USP Council and its senior management team.

“Leadership emerged as a major point of discussion in interviews conducted by Islands Business,” wrote Yaya.

Dr Ahluwalia reportedly retains firm support from some USP Council members, and also the student association.

However, islands Business reported that the university had refused to respond to the magazine’s questions.

Several interview efforts
“Over a seven-week period beginning January 22, we made several efforts to reach vice-chancellor Ahluwalia. In mid-February, his office said he would not be able to provide an interview while at Laucala Campus ‘because of his busy schedule’ (they specified ‘engagements with stakeholders and other university-related activities’).

On March 6, Dr Ahluwalia responded an email: “Many of the questions that you ask in relation to staff are being discussed with the respective unions and it is inappropriate for me to make comments through the media.

“Most of your other questions relate directly to matters that are the business of our Council and its deliberations are confidential so it is inappropriate too for me to discuss these matters outside of Council.”

Islands Business also sought a response from Professor Pat Walsh, acting pro-chancellor of USP, and chair of the Council. Dr Walsh is the New Zealand government’s representative on the Council. He did not respond to Islands Business.

Former USP pro-chancellor and chair, now Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine, told Islands Business that during her term with USP, one of the “strong challenges we faced was the issue with the vice-chancellor”.

Professor Ahluwalia’s extended work contract is expected to be finalised at next month’s Council meeting which has been moved from May to April 26-27.

The vice-chancellor is due to meet the staff unions in mediation on Tuesday in a bid to avoid a staff strike.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua New Guinea’s Service Improvement Programme worth more than K1 billion (NZ$440 million) has become a major cash cow for “irresponsible” leaders, says the monitoring agency.

In the past decade, the Provincial and District Services Improvement Programme has delivered much but has not achieved what it set out to deliver — vital government services like schools, health centres, roads and bridges, jetties to the rural population.

Its overseer, the Department of Implementation and Rural Development has now become concerned at the apparent abuse and misuse of public funds by political leaders and their district administration.

The DIRD now reports that a large amount of money has been spent on “ghost projects” which are not physically completed on the ground and cannot be monitored due to financial constraints among others.

Many are half complete health centres or abandoned school classrooms or teachers houses, says DIRD secretary Aihi Vaki.

“Not all of it has been properly acquitted kina by kina. Even the amount of money allocated by the Treasury Department to each district is unknown to the DIRD.”

However, Finance Secretary Dr Ken Ngangan has defended the transfer of the country’s service improvement budgets to the provinces and the remittance of funds by Finance Department as a policy initiative approved by Cabinet.

‘A misunderstanding’
“There is a misunderstanding of the legal framework for budget and expenditure management under which all public and statutory bodies operate,” he said.

“As reported, NEC Decision 240/2018 provided for DIRD oversight of PSIP/DSIP funds management and monitoring.

“Accordingly, the NEC decision was effectively put into effect through the 2019 National Budget process, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, PFMA and Appropriations Act, with PSIP/DSIP funds allocated to DIRD in the National Budget for management and monitoring.”

However, a concerned Vaki has termed it as an “open secret” known to the leaders and their district public servants.

He said the DSIP and PSIP acquittals were compounded by lack of surveillance and monitoring by his department staff due to lack of funding from the National Government despite request after request.

He said there were many issues encountered, some of which were reports of proposed ghost projects paid out and finding their way into the acquittal papers to DIRD.

District Services Improvement Project (DSIP) grants amounts to K960 million a year while provincial (PSIP) grants are K220 million a year. The total bill in a year disbursed by Treasury to MPs is K1.18 billion.

“Due to the increase in districts last year, this year’s allocation will increase to a whopping K1.239 billion,” Vaki said.

Concerns amplified
His concerns were amplified in 2021 by now sidelined Immigration Minister Bryan Kramer on multi-million kina projects in rural districts.

Kramer had said that projects were designed, pre-fabricated, and allegedly constructed according to the acquittals but in reality, there was nothing to show for on the ground.

Kramer, who was then Justice Minister, had also claimed that billions of kina were also lost to undelivered state contracts every year and investigations into some of these incomplete projects were made by the State Audit and Recovery Taskforce (SART) initiated by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General working with nine other state agencies with more than K25 million already recovered.

The current status of the SART since then is not known. Nor how much more they may have been able to identify or recover following the last update provided by Kramer.

These were examples of abuse and misuse on a national level, but on the DDA level, it was alleged that millions may have been squandered through unscrupulous and dubious project deals in rural areas.

Vaki was forthright in his revelation, adding that while 60 percent of MPs had made an attempt to acquit their funding, 40 percent had never provided evidence of how they had spent public money in their districts.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Late last year, the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) initiated a process to eliminate 170 academic jobs to cut costs. The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) found AUT’s approach breached its collective employment agreement with staff and their union and ordered it to withdraw the termination notices.

Tertiary education runs on an insecure labour force in New Zealand and elsewhere. The AUT decision illustrates that even traditionally secure positions are becoming less so.

Tenure is the traditional protection for academics in the tertiary sector, but New Zealand does not have tenure at its universities.

Tenure is more than a perk

A common argument against tenure is that it leads to a complacent, under-motivated university professor. These concerns are hypothetical — evidence that tenure causes productivity differences is lacking.

In fact, one of few large studies on the subject found the opposite. Good administrators should be able to manage any actual productivity issues as they do in all other workplaces.

On the other hand, lack of tenure creates risks for free societies. Tenure is common practice in other liberal democracies. UNESCO says:

Security of employment in the profession, including tenure […] should be safeguarded as it is essential to the interests of higher education.

Tenure is important, if not indispensable, for academic freedom. Academic freedom is essential to a university’s mission, and this mission is a characteristic of a democracy. As University of Regina professor Marc Spooner put it:

A country’s institutional commitment to academic freedom is a key indicator of whether its democracy is in good health.

The Employment Relations Authority has issued a compliance order to the university, requiring it to withdraw its notices of termination. https://t.co/NUvBfqS6ad

— Stuff (@NZStuff) January 5, 2023

Scholarship is not piecework
The ERA said AUT misunderstood terminology in the collective employment agreement.
The clash term was “specific position”. AUT’s position was that specific positions are identified by professional ranks (from lecturer to professor) and the numbers of each role across four particular faculties.

The ERA did not agree and concluded an essential component for identifying specific positions is the employee, being the person who is the current position holder or appointee to a position.

AUT’s assertion would be like the air force using the rank of “captain” to adjust its number of pilots. The number of captains does not tell you what each captain does, be it to fly planes or fix them.

Without tenure, a standard less than this minimum established by the ERA can be used to eliminate academics who have legitimate priorities that do not align with the administrative staff of the day, or are the victims of any other concealed discrimination. The ERA clarification makes it more difficult to inhibit intramural criticism, the right to criticise the actions taken by managers and leaders of the university.

The authoritative review of freedom of speech and academic freedom in Australian universities singles out the importance of academic freedom for this purpose, saying:

It […] reflects the distinctive relationship of academic staff and universities, a relationship not able to be defined by reference to the ordinary law of employer and employee relationships.

The ERA clarification helps to prevent the firing of academics who are teaching, researching or questioning things administrators, funders or governments don’t want them to. But it is a finger in a leaking dyke. Tenure is a tried and tested general solution.

Health of the democracy
We only need to observe the events in the United States to recognise the importance of tenure. This benchmark country has a proud tradition of tenure. Nevertheless state governments are dismantling tenure to impose political control on curriculums. Our liberal democracy is not immune to this.

We need more than tenure-secured academic freedom to enable universities to do the sometimes dreary and at other times risky work of providing societies alternatives to populist, nationalist or autocratic movements. But as the Douglas Dillon chair in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, Darrell M. West, wrote, academic freedom is a problem for these movements.

Recognizing the moral authority of independent experts, when despots come to power, one of the first things they do is discredit authoritative institutions who hold leaders accountable and encourage an informed citizenry.

In a system with tenure, a university would have a defined stand-down period preventing reappointment to vacated positions. For example, if an academic program and associated tenured staff that teach it were eliminated at the University of Arkansas for financial reasons, the program could not be reactivated for at least five years. The stand-down inhibits whimsical or agenda-fuelled restructuring as a lazy option to manage staff.

If a similar trade-off were to be applied to how AUT defined specific positions, then no academics could be hired there for five years. It is very different to be prevented from hiring academics than it is to, say, not re-establishing a financially struggling department or program.

Herein lies the true value of tenure. It is greater than a protection of the individual. It protects society from wasteful or ideologically motivated restructuring as an alternative to poor management. Tenure is security of the public trust in our universities.

Dr Jack Heinemann is professor of molecular biology and genetics, University of Canterbury. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A major development out of the besieged University of the South Pacific has meant that two main characters in a saga that threatens the financial viability of the regional institution are now out of the University Council.

Controversial chair of the USP Council audit sub-committee Mahmood Khan of Fiji was voted out of the position at the council meeting that was held virtually yesterday.

However, he remains as one of Fiji’s 5 representatives in the council.

Equally controversial council chair and pro-chancellor of the university, Winston Thompson, will be replaced in the position by Hilda Heine, former President of the Marshall Islands, one of the 12 Pacific Island nations that co-own USP, together with Fiji.

She takes over the pro-chancellor and chair of the council position when Thompson completes his term on December 31.

Thompson together with the ardent support of Khan and Fiji’s Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum have been at the forefront leading moves to get USP Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Pal Ahluwalia removed.

This began with the leak to Islands Business magazine in 2019 of a confidential report authored by Ahluwalia alleging numerous cases of administrative and financial mismanagement and abuse by the previous university administration.

It saw the purported suspension of the VC by Thompson and Khan and culminating in his deportation together with his wife from Fiji in late January of this year.

Ahluwalia is leading the university from the USP campus in Nauru where he awaits the opening of flights into Samoa, where the office of the vice-chancellor will be now based.

Samisoni Pareti is publisher and managing director of Islands Business magazine. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Simpson@8 investigated the allegations of mismanagement that had accrued over professor Chandra’s tenure. Video: Simpson@8

By Sri Krishnamurthi

Staff and students at the University of the South Pacific have said poor governance, nepotism and negligence were rife at the institution under the leadership of the previous Vice-Chancellor, Professor Rajesh Chandra.

The current Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Pal Ahluwalia raised his concerns in a paper titled ‘Issues, Concern and Breaches of Past Management and Financial Decisions’ which Auckland Accounting firm BDO was asked to investigate and report on.

Professor Ahluwalia listed 26 allegations of mismanagement by professor Chandra who held office from 2008 to 2018.

READ MORE: Former USP Vice Chancellor ‘violated’ norms, say staff and students

The BDO report found governance was weak across USP and implicated some members of USP’s senior management team who were alleged beneficiaries or decision makers.

“Oversight, governance and control is a key weakness across USP. Current policy framework is outdated and isn’t fit for purpose,” the BDO report said.

Frustrated staff such as Dr Morgan Tuimalealiifano, Professor and coordinator of history at USP told a Fijian TV current affairs show Simpson@8, which investigated the allegations of abuse, the incidences had accrued over professor Chandra’s tenure.

“The evidence of our awareness comes from the numerous complaints, the way staff members were treated and the way some decisions were over-ruled, overturned,” Professor Tuimalealiifano told the programme.

“Over the years they accumulated and very little was being done. Sometimes when complaints were lodged the general response was ‘we have to check on our procedures to make sure they were working’, this was getting a bit tiresome.”

Dr Sunil Kumar, an economics lecturer, was more forthright in his assessment of what went on the university which is owned by 12 Pacific countries – Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Samoa.

‘Widespread mismanagement’

“The indications are clear, there has been widespread instances of mismanagement of policies, funds and all kind of resources we are familiar with at USP,” Dr Kumar told the TV programme.

“When there is mismanagement of resources then obviously the university will go through constraints. We were all faced with constraints particularly those who were engaged in delivering the mainstream objectives of the institution.

“There were very basic things we were stifled of, for instance we would not be allowed to buy text books or reference books or our printer material …which means the money was draining out elsewhere and mainstream materials weren’t available as they should have been.”

He said staff had spoken out about governance issues.

“A lot of our staff members have been expressing the element of bad governance that has been happening over the last five, six or seven years during the last Vice-Chancellor’s period.

“The institution suffered very drastically under the former Vice-Chancellor’s leadership.”

New Zealand, which is a key funding partner having signed a $5.15 million agreement with the university back in February, is likely to be concerned about the events that have transpired at USP.

Chandra’s opinion piece

Professor Chandra in an opinion-editorial in the Fiji Sun on September 14 claimed that the BDO Report into allegations of USP mismanagement had found nothing against him.

However, 500 staff and students released a rebuttal, contesting his claims of being “vindicated” from mismanagement during his time at the university.

“Chandra claims that Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) found no corruption, fraud or abuse of office after two months of investigation. This is not borne out by the FICAC letter to USP, namely, that FICAC has not ceased work but merely suspended its investigation to avoid duplication.

“For FICAC to demonstrate it’s independence it must insist on getting the BDO report and formulate appropriate charges. We are quite certain this will happen in due course, if not in Fiji, then in any jurisdiction of an appropriate member country of USP,” the rebuttal said.

It raised other instances specific of mismanagement.

“When he took professional development leave in September, three months before his retirement in December 2018, one could ask, was that leave for the good of the University? Part of the reported leakages of money would have included Chandra going on USP-paid training leave on the verge of his retirement and keeping his housemaid in a student accommodation facility,” the rebuttal said.

Allegations of negligence

The rebuttal also alleged negligence in infrastructure management.

“Before Chandra’s appointment as the VC and current setbacks under his watch, the University had maintained steady growth and expansion for 40 years.

“The Solomon Islands campus in Honiara has been delayed for at least five years while more funds were channelled to the Laucala Bay fourth campus costing $4.1 million. This point is vindicated by the number of written petitions to Council and formal complaints against him during his term in office.

“During his 10-year term, the facilities used intensely by thousands of students and staff, such as the gym, the dining hall and the student halls, fell into disrepair. Many staff were evicted from quarters because of required maintenance work. Instead, many houses remain derelict and unoccupied.

“On the other hand, the Vice-Chancellor’s residence was always renovated on time at considerable cost to the university. During Cyclone Winston, a power generator installed at the VC’s residence ensured his house was lighted while the campus was in darkness.”

It warned that the USP will have to take care of increased costs for the upkeep of the facilities.

“USP will have to pay more as a result of the deferred maintenance costs now. We lost an iconic building on the campus on the eve of Chandra’s departure, which clearly happened as a result of lack of maintenance and upgrade.”

Current VCP thanked

The rebuttal went on to thank the new VCP for his role for taking on perceived mismanagement at USP.

“The staff appreciate VCP Ahluwalia’s role in drawing the USP Council’s attention to alleged irregularities at the university. We look forward to strengthening of USP’s governance system for posterity which the review commission is tasked to do.”

The committee that the USP Council has set up to make changes is to be chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa Fiame Naomi Mata’afa,  Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Henry Puna and Fiji’s Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz