‘Report Vindicates Me’
A response by the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of the South Pacific 2008-2018
Ihave been invited to give my opinion on the allegations made in a document authored by the current Vice Chancellor of USP. USP commissioned an independent Report on the said allegations. A summary of an Independent Report commissioned by USP, which has been circulated publicly makes it clear that the Report did not find any fraud, corruption or abuse of office against me personally. This is because I had led and managed USP for 10 and half years as Vice-Chancellor always within the Statute governing the delegations of the Vice-Chancellor, the Staff Ordinance, and other relevant Ordinances and policies.
It is also worth noting that the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC), which is the competent and legal body to investigate and prosecute corruption, fraud and abuse of office in Fiji, did not find any corruption, fraud or abuse of office after more than two months of investigations. There can be no clearer vindication of my position right from the beginning regarding the allegations made by a new Vice-Chancellor and President, Pal Ahluwalia, who has no experience of either USP’s extra-ordinary complexity, or the complexity of the Pacific Islands and who has no experience of having run a university as a Vice-Chancellor or experience as longterm full Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Having Pacific knowledge or experience was one of the selection criteria.
At the outset let me say that while the Independent bodies did not find any element of fraud, corruption and abuse of office, USP Council failed to take decisive action
and clear my name and those who were affected by so-called wrong decisions that I had allegedly made. We remain in confusion. The lack of this announcement or clearance will continue to give fuel to those pushing this agenda, and allow social media and mainstream media to have their interpretation of the reports reinforcing the perception of crisis and paralysis at USP.
This is not fair at all after two investigations, so the Council needs to clear the names of those affected. The review and strengthening of the policies and procedures is another matter and something that USP was doing as a matter of course. These should be undertaken if the Council so desires.
Decisions
All my decisions were taken during the lawful exercise of my duty and authority as the Vice-Chancellor under the direction and supervision of Council, its Committees and the Pro Chancellor. I am therefore entitled to Council’s duty of care to me, fairness and natural justice.
The basis of all my decisions were the policies and procedures of the University, but there are two documents that provide the overall authority and responsibility of the Vice-Chancellor. One is The University of the South Pacific (Vice-Chancellor) Ordinance (2015). The other one is The University of the South Pacific Staff Ordinance (2017) and its predecessor Ordinance. Section 3(d) of the Ordinance states: The Vice-Chancellor shall have the authority to adjust the terms and conditions of service of staff members in specific cases when it is in the interests of the University. Section 26 reads: The Vice-Chancellor shall determine from time to time which posts shall carry responsibility allowance and acting allowance and the levels of these allowances. The second basis of the decisions that I made were under The University of the South Pacific Delegations (Vice-Chancellor) Ordinance (2015). The delegations were developed and approved by the Council. BDO agrees that my decisions were within the Vice-Chancellor’s delegations. If the Council felt that the delegations needed review, it was the responsibility of Council to review them—it was not my call.
Examining the allegations
In examining the allegations, the public and experts should take note that I was the longest serving Vice-Chancellor of USP in its 50-year history, appointed unanimously in 2008. I led USP through very tough reforms and restructuring to take it out of the difficulties, it faced
I wish to point out that there was no negative feedback about my decisions from either the Pro Chancellors who were my supervisors—and I worked under four Pro Chancellors—or the Council for whom I worked. If there were shortcomings, I was entitled to know of this feedback. Instead, every one of my performance assessments was positive with bonuses.
Rajesh Chandra Former USP Vice-Chancellor, President
before my appointment. Even with these, I was re-appointed unanimously in 2014. These unanimous decisions would not have been possible if my leadership had legitimate problems or if there had been any hint of corruption, abuse of office or fraud. USP had gone through so many external and internal reviews during this period; any such existence would have been discovered. Why would suddenly a new Vice-Chancellor think that there was abuse and fraud, two words he frequently used?
I wish to point out that there was no negative feedback about my decisions from either the Pro Chancellors who were my supervisors—and I worked under four Pro Chancellors—or the Council for whom I worked. If there were shortcomings, I was entitled to know of this feedback. Instead, every one of my performance assessments was positive with bonuses.
There were numerous external reviews of USP during my term. They had very positive comments about my performance and leadership in contrast with both what Professor Pal has painted and what BDO seems to indicate. Why would a new Vice-Chancellor get into the business of witch- hunting and making allegation on his predecessor rather than rolling out and implementing the new Strategic Plan duly approved by the Council? It is my respectful opinion that the current VC Professor Ahluwalia has defied the directives of the Executive Committee of Council and Council and put University in a position that it is in today.
One must ask, why did he not follow the established internal procedures if he thought that there were any anomalies?
He directly attacked someone who had received accolades, respect and acknowledgement from regional Heads of State and Governments, Development Partners, and Council. It is notable that in January this year the Honourable Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison acknowledged my contribution and leadership of the University during a public lecture at the University. How can I suddenly be judged as a leader who is alleged to have committed fraud and mismanaged the University?
My disappointment
I am disappointed that I was denied the normal and agreed natural justice in this unfortunate saga. To begin with I was not given a copy of the allegations by the University so I could respond to them. This is such a basic requirement and the law in Fiji.
The Executive Committee of Council’s directions to make them available to those who were accused of wrong doing and to verify the allegations were disregarded and the allegations were referred instead to FICAC against the Executive Committee’s decision. How that can happen defies logic and must be treated as insubordination of the highest order. Importantly, FICAC did not find any abuse of office, corruption or fraud. Natural justice was also denied to all the others mentioned as beneficiaries in the allegations. They are among the star performers of the University by any account. Without their contributions, USP would not have been able to celebrate so proudly what it did during the 50th anniversary.
It is a matter of public record what was achieved during my term as Vice-Chancellor and President. Fortunately, these are not subject to doubt or speculation as they are cold facts and audited by reputable firms. During this period, USP went from scandals, deficits, declining student enrolment to ending the decade with unprecedented growth and development, and national, regional and international reputation. It was respected and admired for its sound financial management, and it had sound finances, with an operating surplus of $12.4 million in 2018 to continue to maintain its momentum and excel even further. All these are in the 2018 Annual Report accepted by the Council. When I left, we already had negotiated AUD84m Partnership Agreement that was later confirmed in January 2019 by the Australian Prime Minister.
Achievements
It is noteworthy that all 27 international accreditations and recognitions of USP by the end of 2018 in its entire 50 years and all its eight innovation patents were achieved during my term as Vice-Chancellor. I had led the development of three Strategic Plans including the current one (with two year planning and approved by the Council) for USP. The many other contributions have been documented and are available through the Annual Reports.
All of these were achieved on a shoestring budget and less than half per student funding compared with Australian universities, and huge difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff needed for excellence. This is no mean feat and needs to be celebrated instead of pursuing non-existent fraud or abuse of office.
Independent observation
One observation by the independent Accountants in particular needs comments. They submit that the rationale for some of the decisions is not clear to them. The difficulty is how would they be? They are not aware of USP or its practice or traditions. Unless one really understands the context and the circumstances at the time when decisions were made, rationales will not be clear. In any case, rationales are debatable—but delegations are not. They could have asked me for the rationale—but they did not. Indeed, if they had interviewed those named in Professor Ahluwalia’s allegations, they would have become more aware of the circumstances and reasons for the decisions.
Recruitment and retention of excellent people has always been a problem at USP. Turnover is a problem. This requires us to act swiftly to prevent the loss of key members of staff. It is for this reason that the VCP is given the authority in the Staff Ordinance to adjust the terms and conditions of staff when it is in the interest of the university to do so. On rare occasions, I used this authority and stand behind all my decisions.
Too much is made of the incidence of people over 65 years being re-employed. In all such cases, the University has a history of being unsuccessful in recruiting their replacements. I challenge anybody to find better solutions to the issue of recruiting and retaining staff than what we did in the last ten years.
Questions
The questions the public needs to ask are these: Was Professor Ahluwalia driven by good faith in his actions? Did he exercise due diligence before making such allegations? Did he exercise duty of care to his staff? Did he show expected levels of maturity and wisdom as to how to resolve misunderstanding and difficulties without damaging the reputation of the university? All stakeholders of the University need to know the answers. Huge amount of damage has been done to USP’s reputation, magnified many times over through the leak of the allegations document authored by Professor Ahluwalia. Given the damage and the reduction of confidence in the ability of USP to maintain confidentiality of key documents, and for the proper closure to this saga brought upon the USP by its new Vice-Chancellor and President, it is vital, for the sake of the reputation of Council itself, that the leak is investigated fully.
USP’s fall
It saddens me greatly that a university that was flying so high in 2018, and whose support, reputation and strength was the highest of any time in its 50 years and the pride of the region as a regional organisation, has been brought down to its knees, with its finances in serious difficulties, much worse than USP faced in the aftermath of my predecessor 11 years ago, and its reputation so damaged.
I observe that there is little progress with the implementation of either the Strategic Plan 2019-24 or Annual Plan 2019. The public that funds USP should ask: what is the difference between where the USP was in 2018 and where it is now? The difference in my respectful opinion is the conduct of the new Vice-Chancellor and President.