The University of the South Pacific — one of only two regional universities in the 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.

• READ MORE: USP staff vote in favour of strike action over ‘just and fair’ pay rise
• Other USP crisis reports

The world’s other regional university is the 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 at the Pacific university 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 management 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’),” the magazine reported.

“On March 6, Dr Ahluwalia responded in 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.

• The full Islands Business report

Deported Canadian academic Professor Pal Ahluwalia is still vice-chancellor and president of the University of the South Pacific, says chancellor Lionel Aingimea.

Professor Ahluwalia and his wife, nursing lecturer Sandra Price, were forced to leave Fiji in early February after the Fiji government claimed the couple had breached provisions in their work permits.

Aingimea, who is also Nauru’s President, said once issues relating to the academic’s departure were cleared at the council level, Professor Ahluwalia would be allowed to operate out of any USP member country, except Fiji.

• READ MORE: More reports on the USP saga

Aingimea’s comments comes amid a council meeting this week to discuss a report which had highlighted governance issues at the regional institution.

The report was compiled in 2019 by forensic accountant BDO Auckland following allegations by Professor Ahluwalia of “serious mismanagement and abuse of office” at the USP.

The fallout between the university’s governing body, the USP Council, and the head office host nation, Fiji, came to the fore following the deportation of Ahluwalia.

Aingimea had condemned the deportation.

USP not informed
He said the USP Council, Professor Ahluwalia’s employer, was not informed of his deportation by the Fijian authorities.

The council had not revoked Professor Ahluwalia’s contract, Aingimea said.

He told the Fiji Times newspaper last week that he had received a lot of letters from USP students and staff expressing their disappointment that issues remained unresolved.

The question of Professor Ahluwalia’s role was put to a subcommittee, Aingimea said, and the subcommittee had returned it to the council meeting this week with some recommendations.

“As far as I am personally concerned, he [Ahluwalia] is still the VC of the USP,” he said.

On Ahluwalia not being able to return to Fiji, Aingimea said he could operate from any member country.

“As far as I am concerned there are other campuses around the region, USP is a regional institution and, therefore, the VC can, as far as I am concerned, operate out of Samoa, Vanuatu or Nauru or any other country for that matter.”

Ahluwalia and his wife were taken from their Suva home late at night on February 3 and driven to Nadi International Airport to be put on a flight to Australia.

According to the Fiji government, Alhuwalia and Sandra Price had continuously breached Section 13 of the Immigration Act which led to their deportation.

The couple have denied the claims.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

In the in­ter­est of trans­parency, the Univer­sity of the South Pa­cific should make pub­lic the con­tents of the univer­sity’s “secret” BDO Re­port and also the al­le­ga­tions made against vice-chan­cel­lor Professor Pal Ah­luwalia, says a leading New Zealand-based Fiji academic.

“Pub­lic in­ter­est de­mands that the BDO re­port needs to be re­leased and the work by the com­mis­sion ex­pe­dited while the al­le­ga­tions against the vice-chan­cel­lor be re­leased also and prop­erly in­ves­ti­gated as well,” said political sociologist professor Steven Ratuva, a former USP academic.

Professor Ratuva, director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, said se­crecy “does not serve any­one any good”.

READ MORE: Special reports on the USP leadership crisis

He said USP was a re­gional in­sti­tu­tion and there should be no po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence that would un­der­mine its in­de­pen­dence.

“As we have seen in other de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, politi­ci­sa­tion of univer­si­ties has led to their demise as re­spectable in­sti­tu­tions.

“What USP needs is not vendet­ta-based vengeance and coun­ter­-vengeance pol­i­tics which will run the in­sti­tu­tion down, but in­de­pen­dent schol­arly in­no­va­tion to raise the level of high im­pact re­search and teach­ing to be­come a world class in­sti­tu­tion of learn­ing.”

BDO report ‘now history’
USP Coun­cil chair­ and pro-chan­cel­lor Win­ston Thomp­son, a retired Fiji diplomat, said the BDO re­port was “now his­tory” and peo­ple should stop try­ing to res­ur­rect it.

He said al­le­ga­tions of mis­man­age­ment and gov­er­nance is­sues which emerged from the leaked BDO re­port published by Islands Business had been “dealt with”.

Thomp­son said the univer­sity’s po­si­tion on the re­port was that its find­ings had al­ready been con­sid­ered by the coun­cil in its spe­cial meet­ing in Au­gust last year.

He also said al­le­ga­tions against him in the BDO re­port were “com­par­a­tively mi­nor”.

Nasik Swami is a senior Fiji Times reporter.

• USP Council to discuss ongoing governance issues

The Fiji Labour Party believes suspended University of the South Pacific vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia is being harassed for his attempt to clean up governance at USP.

In a statement, party leader Mahendra Chaudhry claimed the suspended vice-chancellor had been denied justice.

“We commend his stand to fight for the principles of good governance and for what is right,” he said.

READ MORE: Secret report reveals widespread salary and allowance rorts at USP

“USP has faced longstanding issues regarding excessive pay and allowances.

“It needs cleaning up and those responsible should be brought to task.”

Chaudhry said the party condemned the current controversy that had jolted the regional university, disrupting studies and bringing disrepute to it.

The suspension of the vice-chancellor had led to protests at the university campuses in the region.

“We understand Nauru is now calling for an urgent special meeting of the USP Council to discuss the crisis and we hope that justice will prevail.

“It seems that proper procedures were not followed, leading to calls by the USP Students Association for the USP Council chairman, Winston Thompson, to step down.

“The matter has been simmering for a year now, sparked off by allegations contained in a paper by the vice-chancellor.

“The paper highlights 26 allegations of mismanagement by the former vice-chancellor and senior management staff as either beneficiaries or decision-makers.”

Chaudhry said accountancy consultant BDO New Zealand was commissioned by the USP Council to investigate the allegations made in the paper, but that the BDO report had never been made public.

Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times reporter.

• More USP saga stories

Cook Islands campus backs University of the South Pacific’s attempts to clean out alleged corruption and mismanagement at its Laucala headquarters campus in Suva, Fiji.