Professor Ahluwalia claims no job losses...
Fiji is not the only donor country to withhold grant from the University of the South Pacific – Australia and New Zealand have also withheld their grant, citing governance issues.
Yesterday USP Vice-Chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia told a press gathering that Australia has committed to releasing their funds. What he did not tell the press gathering was that last Wednesday a team from USP went cap in hand to Australian reps asking them to release funds. Australia agreed to release AU$3.5million (about FJ$5.29m) but not the AU$10m (about they had pledged.
New Zealand too held back their grant. This is a surprise because the belief among certain USP Senate and Council members is that New Zealand rep on the University Grants Commission favours Professor Ahluwalia.
But, the fact remains that other nations have withheld their money from USP because of governance issues but when Fiji did the same, it became a big deal.
Why? USP cannot survive without money from Fiji but they do not want to be held accountable for the millions of dollars that Fiji gives. The staff and students’ associations who wrote to the Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama wanting him to reverse this decision should instead understand that all Fiji has asked for is that an independent investigation be done into claims of mismanagement and the governance issues which have been highlighted. Do this, deal with the outcome and Fiji will release the grant to USP.
If USP wants to access the grant from Fiji, they merely need to have an independent group look into the allegations. If the USP management has nothing to hide, they would not fear such an audit.
Addressing the issues raised during the press gathering
Professor Ahluwalia showed a series of slides during the press gathering and explained how he plans to save money. But the slide which Fiji Sun highlighted on Saturday was different from what was shown to other media.
The slide shown to other media completely left out the row dealing with the fate of 62 cleaners.
On top of that, a few senate members have also come out and claimed that appendix 6 which was presented to the Council was different from what was presented to Senate. Some of the information was amended in the two versions. Why?
Staff members are also claiming that too many different versions of the restructure documents are being floated around.
How will jobs be saved?
Professor Ahluwalia said, for example, he will assume the responsibility of Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research when the incumbent retires.
He claims that by doing so, he is saving 28 jobs in that department. It does not make sense.
If he were to appoint a DVC Research, that does not in any way mean 28 people from the department would need to be laid off. Where is the logic in that?
The Department would need to function in any case, with or without a DVC Research but it would in no way function without 28 of its staff. Will this come at a cost of making more courses at USP non-viable?
Budget for reskilling and upskilling
Professor Ahluwalia explained that the non-academic staff whose positions would be done away with in the new school structure would be reskilled and absorbed as academic staff. However, no evidence of any budgetary allocation has been presented to show how much will be spent in reskilling and upskilling and how long such an exercise would take.
Will the academic positions not be filled while these reskilling and upskilling exercises take place?
USP and its management are skating on very thin ice. No amount of restructure will do away with the elephant in the room - governance issues.
They would not need to embark on such restructure exercises if they sort out their governance issues, be transparent to all donor countries and start accessing their grants. Just get the independent commission in, let them investigate, implement their recommendations and get your grant money.
USP still needs every Fijian student funded through the Tertiary Education Loans Scheme and their money. If the Fijian Government was to pull the plug on that too, Professor Ahluwalia would have no one to blame, but himself.