Make ‘secret’ BDO report and USP inquiries public, says Ratuva

“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”.

Today’s Fiji Times front page. Image: Fiji Times screenshot/PMC

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.