Opinion: FNU saga of national shame

Changing the jockey does not fix the horse.

On March 13, 2026, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka declared a “new beginning” for Fiji National University (FNU) as Parliament passed the FNU Amendment Bill by 30 votes to 6, with 19 MPs abstaining.

Ministerial responsibility shifts to the Ministry of Strategic Planning, but Vice-Chancellor Unaisi Nabobo-Baba remains in post with governance complaints unresolved, the FICAC complaint lodged on February 9, 2026 sits unanswered, and no replacement council has been appointed since the previous one lapsed on 10 February 2026.

Every taxpayer is entitled to ask who put FNU in this condition, and whether the hands now entrusted with its revival are the same hands that engineered its decline.

Nasinu lockout

The defining image of this crisis is not a policy document. It is a padlocked gate.

In January 2026, Semesa Karavaki — statutory chair of the FNU Council, was turned away at the Nasinu campus by security staff who said they were following orders.

On January 13, 2026, the Council issued formal resolutions following whistleblower complaints against the Vice Chancellor (VC) alleging bias, discrimination and bullying.

Within days, a verbal instruction from the Prime Minister’s Office, reportedly issued while Sitiveni Rabuka was overseas, reassigned FNU administratively, the VC cancelled the Council’s disciplinary meeting and directed secretariat staff to cease communicating with Council members. A statutory guardian was physically barred from his own institution.

This is governance by executive fiat, not by statute, and it set the template for everything that followed.

Timeline that condemns

In governance, timing is evidence. On January 13, 2026, the Council’s resolutions signalled the VC could be placed on leave pending investigation.

The verbal reassignment followed within days. Permanent Secretary Peni Sikivou issued a written directive to put on hold everything until further notice from the Prime Minister.

Mr Karavaki confirmed he was told to stand down post facto — not consulted, not briefed, not heard. On February 9, the Council filed a FICAC complaint.

On February 10, it lapsed without replacements being appointed. On March 12, Mr Rabuka stated he had no need to meet Karavaki.

On March 13, Parliament passed the Amendment Bill. This is a chain of executive actions that dismantled, step by step, the statutory oversight mechanism that stood on the verge of investigating the VC.

Allegations shielded

The FNU Act 2009 is unambiguous. Sections 7, 8 and 9 vest the Council — not the VC, not the Prime Minister, with control of funds and authority to approve senior appointments; Section 30 makes the VC accountable to the Council.

The VC allegedly made the submission triggering ministerial reassignment without any Council resolution or knowledge. Opposition MP Jone Usamate stated it plainly: no number of verbal instructions from the Vice-Chancellor can change what is written in black and white in our laws.

The Council’s January resolutions followed formal whistleblower complaints from the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences staff alleging bias, discrimination and bullying, and specific concerns that a professorial appointment did not meet statutory qualifications. The Amendment Bill did not resolve those allegations. It retroactively legalised the breach already inflicted.

PM’s demeanour

PM Rabuka’s public statement of March 12, 2026 is itself a Governance act: I do not need to meet with former FNU Council chair Semesa Karavaki because everything has moved on. Karavaki is not a political opponent. He is a government appointee who held statutory office, seeking to brief the head of government on documented governance failures at a publicly funded national institution.

Rabuka’s refusal to meet, combined with his stated satisfaction with the VC, his appointment of the VC to the constitutional review committee, and his silence on SODELPA minister Radrodro’s conduct — creates an unmistakable and indefensible appearance of partiality. He engaged openly with one side of a serious institutional dispute while refusing to hear the other.

A governance vacuum

The FNU Council lapsed on February 10, 2026 when member terms expired and no replacements were appointed, an outcome Acting PM Vosarogo had publicly acknowledged in January was imminent.

Mr Rabuka said he was comfortable with seven proposed names. The appointments were not made. FNU, a dual-sector institution serving approximately 20,000 students, has since operated without a statutory governing body: no oversight of senior appointments, no independent budget accountability, no institutional check on the VC’s exercise of power.

The creation of that vacuum in the direct context of a pending disciplinary inquiry and an active FICAC complaint was not administrative delay or oversight. It was a deliberate governance choice that left the institution and its students entirely unprotected.

FICAC, Police and Institutions

The two unresolved FICAC complaints, lodged July 31, 2024 and February 9, 2026, demand a harder question about the institution now holding them.

Acting FICAC Commissioner Lavinia Rokoika was appointed directly by PM Rabuka, bypassing the Judicial Services Commission in a process Mr Rabuka himself described as a direct recommendation from the Prime Minister to the President.

That same Commissioner subsequently cleared a corruption case involving more than one million dollars in alleged FSC losses against her own brother-in-law. FICAC has issued no public statement on either FNU complaint.

The Fiji Police Force has produced no public investigative response to documented misconduct at a publicly funded national university.

When the law-enforcement body is constitutionally contested and the investigator is institutionally compromised, the pattern of protection is not a suspicion. It is a documented record.

The Naiyaca Campus in Labasa stands as the most documented exhibit in FNU’s governance record.

A $30 million-dollar project launched in 2013, abandoned in 2019, and declared structurally unsafe by three independent engineering reports in March 2025, never once occupied.

FNU’s 2024 Annual Report confirmed $7.6 million in Government capital costs and $2.3m of FNU’s own funds written off: taxpayer losses of $9.9m across 12 wasted years.

A 2023 KPMG audit found no business case, no feasibility study, conflicts of interest and irregular tendering. The land was given in good faith by the Tui Macuata, by October 2023, FNU presented a formal matanigasau to President and Tui Macuata, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere at State House for those losses. As of March 13, 2026, no individuals have been charged.

Parallel funding, parallel purpose

FNU was established to rationalise Fiji’s fragmented tertiary sector on the logic that a small economy cannot sustain competing institutions drawing from the same finite public fund. That logic is now reversed in practice. Pacific Polytech Ltd, established in March 2021 by former TPAF staff, received $1m in 2023-24, $5m in 2024-25, and $7m in 2025-26 — $13m in three years — while FNU’s own budget allocation was simultaneously cut by 30 per cent. Fiji Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry stated publicly that $6m was paid before Pacific Polytech was fully registered, described by Opposition MP Alvick Maharaj as illegal. Former Minister for Finance Biman Prasad, who defended both the Amendment Bill and the Polytech allocations in the same parliamentary session, has yet to publicly reconcile those positions.

Process or expediency

The FNU Amendment Bill retroactively legitimises an act executed in breach of statute and resolves nothing of substance.

A statutory chair was physically barred from his institution. A minister received documented misconduct complaints and reportedly responded: what emails?

An Acting FICAC Commissioner appointed outside constitutional process, who cleared her own brother-in-law in the FSC matter, now sits on two unresolved FNU complaints in public silence.

The Fiji Police Force has made no public move. A VC under active investigation was appointed to Fiji’s constitutional review committee by the same Prime Minister. A 30 per cent budget cut was imposed on FNU while $13m flowed to a rival institution.

A paramount chief’s land produced a matanigasau for $9.9m in losses — and not a single charge. Together these constitute not a governance failure, but a governance pattern, the politics of protection, and it has brought national shame upon an institution built to serve every Fijian child.

(Dr Sushil K. Sharma is a World Meteorological Organisation Accredited Class 1 professional meteorologist, Former aviation meteorologist for British Aerospace, Royal Saudi Air Force, and Bahrain Meteorological Service, Former Associate Professor of Meteorology, Fiji National University and Manager, Climate Research and Services Division, Fiji Meteorological Services. The views expressed are those of the author alone and do not represent the Fiji Sun.)