# PAL AHLUWALIA SAID “NO” TO A 30 PER CENT PAY RISE AT USP. THEN THE WHITE-ANTING BEGAN

Universities the world over are hotbeds of competing egos, rivalries and jostling for positions. Academics by nature are smart, strategic and have a high opinion of themselves. And the vice chancellors who manage them are like trapeze artists on a high wire, constantly performing a delicate balancing act. They need to keep their staff happy as well as act in the best interest of their institutions, not least the students who they are all meant to serve.

At the University of the South Pacific, the Vice Chancellor, Pal Ahluwalia, is struggling to stay on his own high wire in the face of a rebellion by certain professional staff at USP backed by a coalition of some powerful outsiders. As Grubsheet revealed in our last post, a secret plot has been hatched to remove Ahluwalia involving the Tongan Prime Minister, Hu’akavemeiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, plus a number of academics at USP and other individuals in the Pacific Islands Forum and Pacific Community.

Incredibly, the Tongan leader wants Pal Ahluwalia to be replaced by the PM’s brother, the current Deputy Vice Chancellor at USP, Dr Massaso Paunga. It is incredible not only for being a blindingly glaring case of nepotism but for being unlawful. Under the current laws governing the University, no vice chancellor or deputy vice chancellor can serve more than 10 years in the job and Dr Paunga’s time is nearly up. But the Tongans and their supporters want that changed so they can get their man in and Pal Ahluwalia out.

A leaked email we published on the weekend details a plan that includes enlisting the support of Sainiana Radrodro – the wife of Fiji’s Education Minister and USP Council member, Aseri Radrodro – to influence her husband to keep Fiji’s Finance Minister, former USP academic and Ahluwalia supporter, Professor Biman Prasad, away from the university long enough to enable the plotters to remove Pal Ahluwalia as Vice Chancellor. (see previous story)

But how has it come to this? Why is someone who returned from exile to the USP campus in Suva as a hero in February 2023 now so much on the nose that there is a secret conspiracy to remove him? How has he managed to cause so much offence? Why is it that the Council of USP and the student body continues to have confidence in Professor Ahluwalia’s leadership yet his support amongst staff has been ebbing away?

The standoff at USP is like an onion with multiple layers of intrigue. But peel them away one by one and the most basic explanation appears to be money. The USP unions wanted a pay rise of 30 per cent that Pal Ahluwalia refused. And ever since, there’s been a clamour behind the scenes for his removal – a comprehensive attempt to white-ant him to a point that his leadership and authority collapses.

The wage campaign has segued into other complaints:

• That Pal Ahluwalia refuses to return to the main Laucala campus from Samoa, which gave him a home after his dead-of-night seizure and deportation from Fiji in 2021.
• He is always travelling instead of being in Suva when he is running a regional institute with campuses in 12 countries.
• He is a Kenyan-born foreigner when, say the critics, the USP should be run by a Pacific Islander who understands the “Pasifika Way”. And what’s the Pasifika Way? More nepotism, it seems, given the secret plot to sweep aside an experienced outsider for a Pacific leader’s brother.

Yet stripped to the bare essentials, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that USP staff are mostly unhappy with Pal Ahluwalia for not giving in to their demands for a pay rise which in global terms, let alone Fijian or regional terms, is way out of line and no responsible employer can meet.

The advent of the Coalition has given Fiji a government that is highly susceptible to acceding to wage demands with the potential to send inflation soaring and inflict severe damage on the economy. Among other things, the unions – led by the likes of Felix Anthony and Daniel Urai – have a powerful ally in the form of a fellow unionist, Agni Deo Singh, in the position of Minister of Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations. And few will quibble with the notion that the Coalition generally is regarded as more “pro-worker” than its predecessor.

The unions are pressing for an increase in the minimum wage in next month’s budget from $4 an hour to $6 an hour – an amount some economists believe Fiji cannot afford while acknowledging that cost-of-living pressures are acute. Many employers have been startled at the terms of last week’s settlement of the dispute between Fiji Water and its striking workers – a complete surrender to the unions and a whopping 21 per cent effective pay rise. Felix Anthony pronounced himself “very pleased” with what had been extracted from the billionaire owners of “earth’s finest water”. But local employers warn that if such a wage rise is replicated elsewhere, Fiji will be in all sorts of trouble, with potential job losses and rampant inflation.

Yet even what happened at Fiji Water is eclipsed by the demand by the two staff unions at USP – one of academics and professional staff and the other of the administrative staff – for a 30 per cent pay rise. Imagine, Dear Reader, getting a pay rise of almost a third of your current earnings? And then imagine if that was replicated in other parts of the economy? Everyone else wanting a 30 per cent pay rise. It is a recipe for economic disaster and especially at a time when the nation’s tax base is being steadily eroded by a mass exodus of our best and brightest.

USP staff have already received a 10 per cent pay increase since 2022 and are in line for an effective rise of almost 20 per cent that the university has offered but the unions have rejected. They want more. The dispute is in informal mediation and both sides have until June 20 to sort it out. But at the same time, they have stepped up their campaign for Pal Ahluwalia’s removal as Vice Chancellor, turning what began as a pay dispute into a full blown assault on his fitness to hold the position.

The leaked email to Grubsheet on the weekend is the latest salvo in that campaign in which Pal Ahluwalia’s critics have gained the ear of an unquestioning mainstream media in Fiji, an influential supporter in the form of Victor Lal at Fijileaks and now figures of the stature of the Tongan Prime Minister, who is trying to replace the Vice Chancellor with his brother.

So regional rivalries are now part of a volatile mix. As we’ve reported, Ahluwalia retains the confidence of the USP Council, including the Acting Pro-Chancellor, Chairman and New Zealand’s representative, Professor Pat Walsh. He also retains the confidence of his current hosts in Samoa, notably the Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, whose government has reportedly been resisting demands that he move from the USP Apia campus back to Suva. But while at face value, Pal Ahluwalia’s position is still safe, it is inevitably becoming more precarious as the whispering campaign against him intensifies.

When the tide of opinion turns, how does one man survive the swirling waters? Pal Ahluwalia’s life vest – the one thing that can save him – are the facts. And certainly the stakeholders at USP – regional governments, parents, students and other interested parties – deserve more of the facts than some of the fiction being peddled in this standoff by individuals governed more by self-interest than the welfare of the region’s pre-eminent institute of learning.

As the unions portray it, USP has ample cash reserves and can afford to meet their pay demands. Yet as Professor Ahluwalia portrays it, the financial situation at USP remains precarious and made more so by the extraordinary extent of Fiji’s outstanding contribution to the running of the university.

It is well known that the ousted FijiFirst government cut off funding for USP altogether when Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum wanted Pal Ahluwalia removed. Less well known is the fact that the bulk of that debt is still outstanding and continues to have a grave impact on USP’s finances.

The Coalition paid $10-million after it won the 2022 election and another $15-million in 2023-24. But as of this week, Grubsheet understands that the total amount still outstanding amounts to almost $85-million – $84,551,545 to be exact. That’s almost $85-million Fiji owes and USP doesn’t have, the consequences of which should be obvious to anyone except, of course, the USP staff unions.

In addition, USP is servicing loans to the Asian Development Bank and has a substantial deferred maintenance bill to fix vital infrastructure. There is obviously a balance to be struck between human capital – the staff – and capital works that are vital to the University’s ability to properly function. As Pal Ahluwalia portrays it, the unions are failing to acknowledge that balance in their refusal to negotiate a reasonable pay settlement significantly less than the 30 per cent they are demanding.

Against the background of this deadlock looms another serious challenge. USP has lost nearly 30 per cent of its student numbers as the region’s young people turn to universities in Australia and New Zealand. The university’s “customer base” is being drastically reduced. And in addition, USP is carrying a huge student debt of around $F30-million, which is largely Fiji-based private students who can’t afford to pay.

All in all, this is not the environment in which a 30 per cent pay rise for staff can be remotely justified. Nor is it arguably an appropriate time to switch vice chancellors at USP in the mistaken belief that having a Pacific incumbent is going to make a jot of difference to the university’s strategic challenges.

On any reasoned examination of the evidence, the fact is that Pal Ahluwalia has successfully steered USP through some extraordinarily turbulent waters. As well as seeing off the challenge of Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum trying to remove him for running a fine-tooth comb through the activities of his predecessor, Ahluwalia was also confronted with the existential threat of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was a time of closed borders, Covid deaths and illness and very real question marks about whether entire countries, let alone their institutions, would survive. Yet at USP, not a single person lost their job or had their salaries cut. Pal Ahluwalia cut expenses and introduced strict financial controls. At the same time, when travel bans were lifted, he embarked on a global campaign to raise extra funding and make up some of the Fijian shortfall, which has obviously necessitated more travel than usual and has, quite unfairly, made him a bigger target.

To date, the Vice Chancellor has raised about $40-million in extra funding which has been earmarked for specific projects and research. These are among the cash reserves the USP staff unions believe they should be receiving in extra salary payments – their 30 per cent pay rise. Yet as Pal Ahluwalia sees it, his overriding responsibility is the sound management of the University’s available resources. And he wants the money secured from foreign donors to finance programs to benefit its students and increase the USP’s academic standing, not feather the nests of “fat cats” who refuse to negotiate sensible pay rises.

Pal Ahluwalia isn’t perfect. He has failed to effectively make his case in the court of public opinion, especially in Fiji, where he perceives the local media to be biased against him. He is especially aggrieved by calls for him to be investigated by FICAC for allegedly corrupt payments to Biman Prasad’s wife, the USP academic, Dr Rajni Chand, to organise Girmit celebrations when those payments have not come from USP. Yet on any reasoned examination of the evidence, the parents and students of Fiji and the Pacific have cause to be grateful to him and instead he is being vilified. Not so much publicly but in an insidious whispering campaign that is proving the truth of an old adage – that when mud is thrown, a great deal of it sticks.

Yet here are some other whispers you won’t hear on the febrile coconut radio about the Professor that are more positive than the dominant narrative.

1/ Pal Ahluwalia is actually mentoring a Pacific candidate – Fijian Professor Jito Vanualailai, the USP Vice Chancellor in charge of education – to be in the position of applying to succeed him when he stands down in 2026. (see biog below)

2/ The Samoan government appears to have been persuaded to lift its objection to Professor Ahluwalia moving back to Suva, a work visa is being organised and a date set for the Professor’s permanent return to the Laucala Campus.

3/ But the bad news for the unions is that Professor Ahluwalia is making it known that he and the University Council intend to hold the line and deny them a 30 per cent pay rise. And for that the nation as a whole, plus the other regional partners in USP, should be grateful. Because far from setting an example of restraint, the USP unions are undermining not just the stability of the University but the economic stability of Fiji as a whole.

The unions are threatening to strike at USP if they don’t get what they want. But they are going to have to answer in the court of public opinion for any damage that will do to the education of the region’s young people.

It is a time for restraint and compromise in Fiji and the other island nations and especially when it comes to preserving our highly vulnerable economies in a very uncertain world. The needs of the lowest paid must come first and vested interests on already decent salaries cannot be allowed to triumph over the collective good.

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Background on Professor Vanualailai – the man Pal Ahluwalia is mentoring to be in a position to succeed him: