THERE is little to show on the ground at the site of the Fiji National University’s Labasa Campus – despite about $12million being spent on the project.
FNU vice-chancellor Prof Unaisi Nabobo-Baba said this while highlighting the construction of the campus started about 15 years ago.
Today, the site at Naiyaca, located beside the Darmodar City, has only a bure and three classrooms.
“From 2023, we spent one year trying to understand what had happened before, because the Government and everyone else were asking for records,” she said, adding the university had carried out a full year of investigations, checking all available documents linked to the project.
“We reviewed whatever records we could find.” She said the findings were later handed to the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption.
“We gave the information to FICAC because about $12million had been used with very little to show for it.”
She said a copy of the report was handed to a parliamentary standing committee.
Tui Macuata Ratu Wiliame Katonivere told a FNU graduation ceremony yesterday that discussions on establishing a national university in the North began as early as 2008. “This after surveys revealed that a large amount of university students studying in Viti Levu were originally from Vanua Levu,” he said.
In 2013, Ratu Wiliame said, land at Naiyaca was gifted to the institution.
“We were told the campus would be completed by 2018.”
A groundbreaking ceremony was held in 2013 attended by then education minister Filipe Bole.
He said big speeches and assurances were given that construction would take three to five years.
“There was confidence, there were speeches, and there were promises.”
The incomplete structures, he said, have become a symbol of neglect and poor planning, raising serious questions about accountability and commitment to the Northern Division.
“The partially built structures at Naiyaca stood quiet and empty, a constant reminder of an unfulfilled promise.”
