Economy Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has suspended the payment of government funding grant to the University of the South Pacific, demanding a thorough investigation into the allegations made against Vice-Chancellor and Prof Pal Ahluwalia by its Audit Risk Committee.
In doing so, amidst widespread criticism, he is turning a blind eye to the fact that VC Ahluwalia has been cleared by all other member countries of the USP Council, including our larger neighbours Australia and New Zealand who count among the major donors to USP.
The VC also enjoys massive support among the students and staff, including academic staff members.
The minister has obviously justified his stance on the principles of good governance and accountability.
If that is the case, I believe it comes rather late as his intervention should have come well before VC Ahluwalia assumed office.
However, if the minister is so concerned with such principles of good governance, he might care to look into the construction of Fiji National University’s multi-million dollar new Labasa campus.
This venture appears to have run into serious trouble raising issues of mismanagement, accountability, wastage of public funds and, possibly the use of corrupt practices.
One must ask how the tender for this project was awarded in the first place and whether due diligence was carried out on the construction company and engineers entrusted with the task.
FNU’s Labasa campus
The construction of the NFU Labasa campus was, I understand, initially the brain child of former FNU VC Dr Ganesh Chand who had envisaged a $10m campus for the North.
It later became a highly ambitious, state of the art facility, costing close to $80 million by the time it is completed.
As the current VC Nigel Healey put it: “This will become the new hub in Labasa. It is quite an exciting project and we are in the process of appointing an academic head of campus who can work with local communities and local employers to decide the range of courses and programs that are needed in the region to support both agriculture and tourism trades”.
He said the first phase would cost about $30m, with the final project having a total of eight buildings and a price tag of close to $80m.
(Fiji Sun January 24, 2018) The civil engineering work, he said, was completed in 2016 and needed to take time to compact before construction could start on it.
It required lifting the site by 2.5 metres to raise it above flood levels.
In April 2018, the media reported that Kartika’s Construction Plumbing Services Ltd of Suva had been selected to build the campus and it would be completed in 18 months.
This was later confirmed by FNU chancellor Ikbal Jannif. The plan was to have the campus ready for the February 2020 academic year.
However, in late January this year, VC Nigel Healey announced that there were delays “in construction and rescheduling works” and the campus would not open this year as originally planned.
But by March the contractor had abandoned the site. And no work has taken place since then. When questions were raised in Parliament in June by the Opposition, the Economy Minister, said the contractor had been terminated “essentially because of non performance”.
These are his words: “It is not that they have not been paid more money than what they have done work for.
The reality is because of non-performance, they are very behind so now we are going through the machinations to be able to get somebody else to do the work,” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said.
“The plan was to complete it this year. It looks like it will not be completed this year as we have already another 53 per cent of the works to be completed but this is one of the challenges that the FNU did have in respect of managing large contracts and not having the internal capacity to manage those contracts.” (FT June 1, 2020)
It is now October, four months since the minister’s statement in Parliament and the site remains abandoned.
I take issue with his claim that 47 per cent of the work had been completed and 53 per cent remained.
Our picture of the construction site was taken on October 11, 2020.
It speaks for itself. Secondly, if the contractor was “terminated for non performance”, what action
was taken against him for failure to deliver?
These are public monies at stake here — running into millions of dollars. You don’t allow a contractor, if he was selected after due process, to just leave like that.
Did the contractor provide a performance bond as required for such large contracts?
It is obvious that not all is correct here.
Something appears wrong and we are not being told the full facts.
Kartika Construction is now reportedly in receivership.
The steel structure and fabricated steel are rotting at the site with a security company on guard.
We are reliably informed that Kartika’s did not have the expertise to undertake such a huge project.
Was due diligence carried out on the company before it was awarded the contract?
It is all too easy for Minister Sayed Khaiyum to write off the issue by simply saying “we will get somebody else to do the work” without any mention of how the State is to recover the huge loss resulting from this matter.
Savusavu Municipal Market
We have a similar case with the construction of the new Savusavu municipal market at a projected cost of $1.1m.
Work stopped on this project around May last year after the council’s then chief executive officer was sent on leave in March.
Since then it has remained abandoned, much to the inconvenience of Savusavu market vendors and citizens.
Questions raised with the authorities have received no answers.
The market project is funded by the UN Women to the tune of $700,000 with the Ministry for Local Government forking out $400,000.
My inquiries have revealed that the $400,000 contributed by the ministry was deposited in the ministry’s operating account and not a special project account, as would have been appropriate.
This has been confirmed by the council.
A Suva engineering firm, Chand’s Engineering, was engaged as consultant for the project.
Pyare Industries Ltd of Labasa were the main contractors.
After the CEO was sent on leave, the contractor was told that there would be changes to the plan and a smaller market would now be built.
An acting CEO was appointed. He was in turn replaced in November by yet another.
The contractor claims he has not been paid for the work done and for the building materials he had bought, as per the original plan.
Everything about the market was kept under wraps. Vendors were relocated to temporary premises after the old market was demolished around September 2018 — most of which are uncovered open spaces,
exposing them and their produce to the vagaries of the weather and the hot sun.
They are not happy and what makes it worse is that no one in the council is answering their queries or showing any empathy for their plight.
Local Government Minister Premila Kumar made a couple of fleeting visits to the town but had hardly the time, or perhaps, the inclination to listen to the suffering vendors.
I wrote to the CEO on September 17 seeking information on why work has been abandoned and the amount paid so far to the contractor and the engineering firm.
The letter was acknowledged with a promise of the information being provided in due course.
I was later informed by the Acting CEO that the matter had been referred to FICAC.
Rakiraki Municipal Market
Then there is the case of the contractor who was awarded the contract to build the $5.2m Rakiraki market after he had offered an inducement to the Town Council to pay off its debt of $131,910.
The Auditor-General cited the case as one of conflict of interest and called on the Local Government ministry to investigate.
The line minister said an internal inquiry would be carried into the Auditor-General’s claims.
We are awaiting the findings of this inquiry. All these cases point to a worrying lack of accountability and transparency and the possible insidious onset of corrupt practices in the disbursement of public funds.
- MAHENDRA CHAUDHRY is the formerprime minister of Fiji and Fiji Labour Party leader. The views expressed are his own and does not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper
