COMING, A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE TO PAL AHLUWALIA. |  |
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Fijileaks: We do not doubt that the acting Chief Justice, Salesi Temo, will convict Frank Bainimarama and Sitiveni Qiliho. He will either send both to prison or pass long suspended sentences—long enough to bar Bainimarama from standing for election. Qiliho's sentence will lead to his dismissal as Police Commissioner. |  |
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*The Mahmood Khan report alleged that the Director Assurance and Compliance at USP, DORIS DULARI TRAILL, was given an inducement allowance of 50% by VCP Pal Ahluwalia.
*This was given contrary to Ahluwalia's own stance against issuing of inducement allowances.
*Traill was on an annual salary of $124,386, and then given an inducement allowance of $63,693, taking her total salary to $188,079.
*According to the 'Mahmood Khan Report' she got the allowance while compiling a report alleging corruption on the part of others in receipt of much smaller allowance.
*The Report also alleged that Traill was given a one year extension by Ahluwalia at the end of her contract from May 28, 2020 to May 26, 2021 on the same salary of $188,079 which included the 50% inducement allowance.
REPORTS on the questionable payment of bonuses at the University of the South Pacific only came to light after the institution established a whistle blower policy in 2019.
This, according to Dulari Doris Traill, the State’s first witness in former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho’s trial which began yesterday. They appeared before Suva magistrate Seini Puamau.
Mrs Traill is the director assurance and compliance at USP and started employment at USP in May, 2017. She said her job involved keeping an oversight on risk management, providing oversights in USP’s control environment and providing visibility to the vice chancellor in terms of the environment that the University was operating in. She said the organisational culture of USP encouraged efficient use of resources and operational effectiveness.
When she joined USP she did a quick review of its risk management and framework environment, to help ascertain how the university was managing its risks in terms of university procedures. She had to put in place policies on the reporting of fraud related matters but found out the university did not have a whistle blower policy or a policy on the reporting of fraud related matters. Mrs Traill said she had worked with the human resources officer and senior leaders to get this policy in place, and managed to get the two documents endorsed towards the end of 2017 at the USP Council’s meeting.
Mrs Traill said the documents had to be endorsed at the University of the South Pacific council meeting.
Acting Director of Public Prosecutions, David Toganivalu then asked Mrs Traill on why there was a need to have such a policy at the university. She said this was to ensure that the university has a good organisational culture and there’s an environment that allowed staff members and stakeholders to report matters freely without being victimised.
First report lodged
After the policy was set up, USP conducted a policy awareness with senior executive management. She said sessions were also conducted with staff members of both the local and regional campuses. Mrs Traill said it was during these sessions that a number of staff came forward and “had issues but were scared because of fear of victimisation”. She told the court that in 2018 they received a report of a bonus payment that was facilitated and paid out in a very questionable manner.
She said the report was raised to her by a human resources officer in a strange manner. Mrs Traill said when her team started investigating the report she was told by a senior management staff and former deputy vice-chancellor, Derrick Armstrong, to stop investigating the matter. She said she was instead instructed to investigate the officers who had reported the matter “for a breach of confidentiality between the HR officer that had reported and officer who had processed the payment”.
Summoned
She decided to continue with her investigation and was summoned to the former vice-chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra’s office. Mrs Traill said the meeting lasted 19 minutes and the former vice-chancellor was adamant that the officer had to go home. The VC was asked to allow the investigation to take course, and let the evidence speak for itself. She said she could not accept what the former vice-chancellor told her because her role as director assurance and compliance meant she had to protect the integrity of the university.
Mrs Traill said her views were made known to the former vice-chancellor. Magistrate Puamau raised with the acting DPP that all the statements made by the witness were background information and needed the prosecutor to take the court straight into the allegations. Mr Toganivalu then told the court of a report compiled by present day vice-chancellor, Prof Pal Ahluwalia, on March 6, 2019. Mrs Traill said the report compiled by Prof Ahluwalia was compiled from reports received from frustrated staff members with issues not being dealt with at upper level.
Investigation challenges
When asked to explain what she meant by upper level, she said the investigation report by Prof Ahluwalia included the bonus payouts, promotions and calling out certain individuals receiving remuneration packages outside of USP’s established policies. The report by Prof Ahluwalia also detailed how individuals received money they were not entitled to.
These included payments to the former chairman of the USP council Winston Thompson, former vice-chancellor Rajesh Chandra, Anjeela Jokhan, former payroll manager Shobna Kiran and other senior executive members. Mrs Traill also informed the court that Mr Thompson had authorised a payout to the former vice-chancellor for a professional development payout leave.
She said the leave approved to Mr Chandra was to allow him to write a book about his experience at USP, “which was not part of the policy”. She said the professional development policy was only supposed to be used for upskilling managers to better leaders for USP. Mrs Traill said a bonus to Ms Kiran, the payroll officer, had been endorsed by Mr Thompson and was signed by the staff review committee. Mrs Traill said Prof Ahluwalia’s report was tabled on March, 6, 2019 at the USP’s executive committee council meeting where she was called to give an update on the whistleblower cases.
She said she was not aware that Prof Ahluwalia was also submitting a report on alleged mismanagement. She said members asked whether the cases were reported to police and she informed them the work she did was around compliance breaches and policies. She said later that day, the executive council committee advised her to continue her investigation.
Her team uplifted all the documents, including the report by Professor Ahluwalia, and in April 2019, she made a decision to report the matter to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption. However, she alleged there was a lot of interference by Mr Thompson.
She said she could not access documents Mr Thompson allegedly had some control over it. The court was told FICAC also started conducting their investigation and started uplifting documents. She said the FICAC officers were ready to go into caution interview when something changed in their activities. Mrs Traill said the officers then informed them that they were instructed to stop the investigations and to investigate a complaint on the leak of the report by Professor Ahluwalia. Source: The Fiji Times,
This, according to Dulari Doris Traill, the State’s first witness in former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho’s trial which began yesterday. They appeared before Suva magistrate Seini Puamau.
Mrs Traill is the director assurance and compliance at USP and started employment at USP in May, 2017. She said her job involved keeping an oversight on risk management, providing oversights in USP’s control environment and providing visibility to the vice chancellor in terms of the environment that the University was operating in. She said the organisational culture of USP encouraged efficient use of resources and operational effectiveness.
When she joined USP she did a quick review of its risk management and framework environment, to help ascertain how the university was managing its risks in terms of university procedures. She had to put in place policies on the reporting of fraud related matters but found out the university did not have a whistle blower policy or a policy on the reporting of fraud related matters. Mrs Traill said she had worked with the human resources officer and senior leaders to get this policy in place, and managed to get the two documents endorsed towards the end of 2017 at the USP Council’s meeting.
Mrs Traill said the documents had to be endorsed at the University of the South Pacific council meeting.
Acting Director of Public Prosecutions, David Toganivalu then asked Mrs Traill on why there was a need to have such a policy at the university. She said this was to ensure that the university has a good organisational culture and there’s an environment that allowed staff members and stakeholders to report matters freely without being victimised.
First report lodged
After the policy was set up, USP conducted a policy awareness with senior executive management. She said sessions were also conducted with staff members of both the local and regional campuses. Mrs Traill said it was during these sessions that a number of staff came forward and “had issues but were scared because of fear of victimisation”. She told the court that in 2018 they received a report of a bonus payment that was facilitated and paid out in a very questionable manner.
She said the report was raised to her by a human resources officer in a strange manner. Mrs Traill said when her team started investigating the report she was told by a senior management staff and former deputy vice-chancellor, Derrick Armstrong, to stop investigating the matter. She said she was instead instructed to investigate the officers who had reported the matter “for a breach of confidentiality between the HR officer that had reported and officer who had processed the payment”.
Summoned
She decided to continue with her investigation and was summoned to the former vice-chancellor Professor Rajesh Chandra’s office. Mrs Traill said the meeting lasted 19 minutes and the former vice-chancellor was adamant that the officer had to go home. The VC was asked to allow the investigation to take course, and let the evidence speak for itself. She said she could not accept what the former vice-chancellor told her because her role as director assurance and compliance meant she had to protect the integrity of the university.
Mrs Traill said her views were made known to the former vice-chancellor. Magistrate Puamau raised with the acting DPP that all the statements made by the witness were background information and needed the prosecutor to take the court straight into the allegations. Mr Toganivalu then told the court of a report compiled by present day vice-chancellor, Prof Pal Ahluwalia, on March 6, 2019. Mrs Traill said the report compiled by Prof Ahluwalia was compiled from reports received from frustrated staff members with issues not being dealt with at upper level.
Investigation challenges
When asked to explain what she meant by upper level, she said the investigation report by Prof Ahluwalia included the bonus payouts, promotions and calling out certain individuals receiving remuneration packages outside of USP’s established policies. The report by Prof Ahluwalia also detailed how individuals received money they were not entitled to.
These included payments to the former chairman of the USP council Winston Thompson, former vice-chancellor Rajesh Chandra, Anjeela Jokhan, former payroll manager Shobna Kiran and other senior executive members. Mrs Traill also informed the court that Mr Thompson had authorised a payout to the former vice-chancellor for a professional development payout leave.
She said the leave approved to Mr Chandra was to allow him to write a book about his experience at USP, “which was not part of the policy”. She said the professional development policy was only supposed to be used for upskilling managers to better leaders for USP. Mrs Traill said a bonus to Ms Kiran, the payroll officer, had been endorsed by Mr Thompson and was signed by the staff review committee. Mrs Traill said Prof Ahluwalia’s report was tabled on March, 6, 2019 at the USP’s executive committee council meeting where she was called to give an update on the whistleblower cases.
She said she was not aware that Prof Ahluwalia was also submitting a report on alleged mismanagement. She said members asked whether the cases were reported to police and she informed them the work she did was around compliance breaches and policies. She said later that day, the executive council committee advised her to continue her investigation.
Her team uplifted all the documents, including the report by Professor Ahluwalia, and in April 2019, she made a decision to report the matter to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption. However, she alleged there was a lot of interference by Mr Thompson.
She said she could not access documents Mr Thompson allegedly had some control over it. The court was told FICAC also started conducting their investigation and started uplifting documents. She said the FICAC officers were ready to go into caution interview when something changed in their activities. Mrs Traill said the officers then informed them that they were instructed to stop the investigations and to investigate a complaint on the leak of the report by Professor Ahluwalia. Source: The Fiji Times,
The National Security Council minutes of the meeting, re USP agenda
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REDACTED: What followed after Aiyaz Khiyum's intervention?
From Fijileaks Archives
MAHMOOD KHAN REPORT: The 33 ALLEGATIONS nephew KHAIYUM wants investigated against Ahluwalia before releasing $37million to USP (fijileaks.com)
