OC: Govt must pay outstanding fees

THE Government has a duty to settle all outstanding commitments to all universities before the school year starts, according to the Ombudsman Commission (OC).
Chief ombudsman Richard Pagen said this after a meeting with the council members of one of the universities and the Department of Higher Education Research Science and Technology (DHERST) acting secretary Dr Francis Hualupmomi to sort out the issue of rising school fees which had been brought to the OC’s attention.
Pagen said it was apparent that the delay was a major contributor to the increase in fees this year.
He said the Government’s free education policy was not being fair to tertiary students.
Pagen said that tertiary students should be a priority in any school fee subsidy system as they were the ones who paid higher fees and had the best chance to join the work force soon.
DHERST confirmed that millions had not yet been appropriated from the allocated funds for universities and, thus, the department could not allocate the required funds on time to the universities.
Hualupmomi said they began every year by paying off the shortfalls of the previous years and allocated whatever funds they had left to the universities and other tertiary institutions.
These funds appropriated in various forms, including accreditation and governance and their ongoing scholarship programmes.
Pagen said he would be calling on the Treasurer Ian Ling Stuckey to prioritise the universities and pay their outstanding funds for 2021 before the school year starts.