Nauru hits back as Fiji withholds USP funding

The leader of Nauru has outlined details of “unethical conduct and gross financial mismanagement” by the previous administration of the University of the South Pacific (USP), amid an intensifying war of words between Fiji and the institution’s other member states.

“Serious breaches of university processes and procedures” have “resulted in the leakage of millions of dollars of member country taxpayers’ and donors’ funding”, Nauru president Lionel Aingimea told his country’s parliament on 7 September.

He described “clear violation of university rules” by six current and former USP staff and administrators before current vice-chancellor Pal Ahluwalia’s appointment in late 2018. “This was nothing short of a gravy train,” he said.

The six cases were covered in a 2019 report by Auckland-based accountancy firm BDO. Mr Aingimea has tabled a summary of the report, which until now has only been available unofficially.

Its findings have been shrugged off by Fiji’s attorney general and minister for the economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, who last month insisted that former USP vice-chancellor Rajesh Chandra had been “within his powers” to make decisions that were criticised in the report.

Fiji is instead pursuing dozens of allegations of mismanagement and cronyism levelled against Professor Ahluwalia after he raised the concerns that led to the BDO investigation.

Addressing Fiji’s parliament on 19 August, Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said Fiji would not contribute its share of funding for USP while Professor Ahluwalia remained vice-chancellor and the USP council “fails in its duty to independently investigate him”.

The allegations against Professor Ahluwalia have been dismissed by a special committee of the USP council, but they have not been examined by external investigators.

As the region’s biggest country by far, Fiji provides about 15 per cent of USP’s budget and about three times the contributions of the governments of the other 11 member states combined. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum is represented on the university’s 32-person governing council through Shiri Gounder, Fiji’s acting permanent secretary for economy. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum is also an influential voice on the University Grants Committee, which determines each member state’s contribution.

He said the three-year contract awarded to Professor Ahluwalia in August was “illegal” because a USP statute said vice-chancellors could be appointed only by the council and on the recommendation of a joint committee of the council and academic senate.

The claims were dismissed in a joint statement from the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff and the University of the South Pacific Union. They said that the vice-chancellor had “championed” ethical principles and that the allegations against him had lacked merit.

The staff statement says Professor Ahluwalia’s renewed contract was not an appointment because his employment had never been terminated. While Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the vice-chancellor’s contract had ended in February “following breaches of his work permit conditions”, the staff statement says Fiji has never explained its justification for “the extreme act” of deporting him.

Former Fijian opposition leader Mick Beddoes accused Mr Sayed-Khaiyum and prime minister Frank Bainimarama of waging war on the university. He said Fiji had “held back” payments of F$28 million (£9.7 million) in 2020 and probably more this year.

Mr Beddoes said Fiji had never explained the “unspecified work permit breaches” that had precipitated the “thuggery” of Professor Ahluwalia’s deportation.

The hostilities have continued against the backdrop of USP’s debut ranking by Times Higher Education – an achievement lauded by Mr Aingimea, Samoan education minister Seuula Ioane and Fijian opposition MP Biman Prasad. “[It] announces our arrival on the global stage,” Professor Ahluwalia said in a statement.

Pro-chancellor Winston Thompson said he hoped the ranking would attract more international students and academics to USP when Covid border restrictions have been lifted. “In terms of climate change, oceanic studies and languages, this is an ideal place for that sort of work,” he said.

He said USP’s ranking was “the result of work that has been going on for many years to get the university to a stage of being able to qualify”.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com