The Fiji National University had to freeze staff recruitment and minimise “discretionary expenditure” after Government grants of $28.5 million for the final quarter in the fiscal 2018/19 were not paid on time.
This, according to the FNU’s 2019 annual report that was tabled at the last sitting of Parliament.
FNU said the institution had “to absorb the shock.”
“The slowdown in the economy in 2019 flowed through to the university in two important ways,” the report said.
“The first was that the final quarter payments of operating grant ($20.7 million) and capital grant ($7.8 million) for fiscal 2018/19 were not paid on time.
“The second was that while the university’s baseline operating grant for fiscal 2019/20 was unchanged at $53.1 million, the capital grant was reduced to $15 million in the June 2019 budget.”
“This fell short of the university’s contractual commitments for fiscal 2019/20 for four construction projects, which had up to this point been fully funded by the Government.”
The FNU implemented a period of intense cost control, designed to protect the university’s cash flows from the changed economic circumstances.
“The university had to make significant one-off savings in the second half of 2019, mainly by freezing staff recruitment and minimising discretionary expenditure, to absorb the shock.”
