The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Report

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

COLLEGE of The Bahamas president Dr Rodney Smith said yesterday that although poor audit practices have prevented COB from drawing down on a significant loan from the Caribbean Development Bank, it has not hampered the college in its transition to university status.

The college was expected to transition into a university in July, however that target date was not met. Dr Smith said the transition is still on target for this year.

The Tribune revealed on Wednesday that for a number of years, COB has been in violation of the College of the Bahamas Act after failing to keep up to date with its audits by at least four years.

This has prevented the college from accessing $16.1m in funds from a Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) loan transacted last year and has raised concern about oversight and financial record keeping at the college.

Speaking during a Rotary Club of South East Nassau meeting yesterday, Dr Smith addressed the matter, saying: “You may have read a story in the newspaper this morning about the audits. The fact of the matter is, yes, the audits are being completed – all the back audits are being completed.

“However, we have not allowed this to hamper our transition from college to university. As a matter of fact, we have already achieved most of what’s in phase one of the loan agreement on our own. Keep in mind that the loan agreement was based on an assessment that was done between 2012 and 2013 so we find ourselves constantly having to contact the CDB and make change orders in some of the terms of references. And so we’re updating the loan terms as we continue to move forward with completing all of our audits and so we have not stopped the process at all.”

Although a draft University of the Bahamas Act 2015 Bill is expected to be reviewed by the College Council within the next week, no date has been given for when COB will officially be declared a university.

Dr Smith, who declined to be interviewed by reporters after the luncheon, said during his presentation: “…Anytime between now and the end of this year we will transition to the University of The Bahamas.”

“The bill is designed to gear us toward international accreditation. This will be a brand new institution. It’s a different kind of institution. It will not be governed by any aspect of the Bahamas government, but by a board of trustees.”

Among the responsibilities the new management arrangement will allow, he said, is for the college to negotiate lecturer salaries.

“One of the reasons we find ourselves in the position we are in today is we have been using the same salary scale structures that have been given to us by the (Department of) Public Services, which means that we are limited in terms of negotiating decent salary for faculty when we’re competing with other institutions,” he said.

“Under the University of the Bahamas, we would be in a better position to negotiate salary and not be confined to a salary range. We have people at the college and other places I’m sure as well who reached the bar, the top of the range, in terms of salaries 10, 15 years ago. And as I say all the time that doesn’t make sense to me because the price of your rent or your mortgage or the price of gas didn’t stop, inflation didn’t stop, so why is it we are using a system where we stop increasing your income?"

"That did not make sense to me, that was one answer. The reason we are in the position we are in today is because we lose a lot of excellent faculty members who cannot accept the salary that we have been offering. So we've lost them. That is not uncommon, a lot of institutions experience that. We're going to be turning that around."