USP VC hopes to be in the country next week

The Vice Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific Professor Pal Ahluwalia says he is hoping to be in the country next week.

Professor Ahluwalia mentioned this during the launching of the Norway Pacific Climate Scholarship Programme today at the University of the South Pacific.

Professor Ahluwalia was part of this meeting through zoom.

He says he wants to meet the candidates who receive the N-POC Programme scholarship face to face.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka had lifted the restrictions for exiled Professor Ahluwalia in December last year where he stated he is ready to meet the Professor personally and will apologise on behalf of the people of Fiji for the way he was treated.

Rabuka had earlier said that they all recall with shock and deep embarrassment how Professor Ahluwalia was bundled out of the country in a Gestapo-style night raid on his home on campus.

He says this was the head of the premier university for Fiji and the region, which provides higher education for many thousands of our young people.

Rabuka said nothing like this had ever happened in our part of the Pacific and it was damaging to Fiji and our island neighbours.

Rabuka says the previous government’s determined assault on the university - spearheaded by the former Minister for Economy, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum had continued after that.