The interim arrangements was put together to save and revive, what has appeared generally to be an almost failing state institution of higher education by the Minister for Higher Education. A Government sponsored intervention was necessary. There were selective steps taken An Investigation Committee was appointed which looked at the causes of the 2015 Student led boycott of academic and research programme at second semester; the an appointment was made of Interim Council after revocation of the previous Council. A new Management was appointed with Associate Professor, Dr John Kola was appointed the Acting Vice Chancellor. Dr Kola is on special arrangements agreed to between the Interim Council of UOG and the management of the University of Papua New Guinea. 

Those arrangements and understandings were done some nine months ago. Under the new Higher Education Act that came into force in October 2014, the Government intervened and exercised control and supervision through the powers of the Interim Council. This exercise never tried before has been the first litmus test for the Minister in the application of specific provisions of the Higher Education (General Provisions) Act 2014. 

For the record, and in the short history of existence UOG, since 1997, this is the first time ever to have a Minister successfully carried out an operation that was specifically aimed at rescuing a University from collapsing. How did he do this? The operation details were planned, supervised, executed and monitored from the Office of the Minister for Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology. This report is based on a detailed execution of a master plan[1]. 

The operations that followed the aftermath of the Black Thursday of 27th August, 2015 can be seen as significant for the University in some respects. Since the minders of the rescue package were aware of the risks factor (given the past history of court cases and obvious reluctance on the part of previous councils and their top management teams from acting of official reports). Before anything was anticipated and planned for UOG to address the students’ boycott insight knowledge and past experience was critical to any operations plan. 

By its own initiative the Council has undertaken to study past reports on the UOG by Nicholas Kuman (sanctioned by Council in 2002) and Michael Gene (sanctioned by a former Minister in 2010), and at the time the UOG 2015 operations begun, it had at hand the fresh Andrew Kwimberi Report (sanctioned by the current Minister and was available in October 2015). The total operational rescue mission took a total of 100 days from 23rd September to 31st of December 2015.Every step of the way, from following the due diligence, exercising the powers under the UOG Act and statues therein, all acts or omission in respect of performing public duties for and on behalf of the University were fair and within the law. 

In 270 days or 9 months the Minister’s appointed interim council and the management team appointed by the council have delivered to the stakeholders a revived and reenergised The University of Goroka, and from the public perception the UOG was an already collapsed and failed University. However, the work needed to make the turnaround has been fast and smooth sailing. 

In the collective knowledge and experience of the team that make up the council and the management, it is known that in past years thet Higher Education Ministers have been unable to act on situations very similar to the 2015 in UOG, because governments and their ministers did not have such powers to intervene in real practical ways. This has allowed university councils and their administrations to get away with conditions prevailing and prevalent in the publicly funded universities for well over thirty years. Monies have been wasted and problems such as the staff or students boycotts have lingered on for decades. 

The Interim Council of UOG was gazetted and sworn in on the 23rd of September 2015. Soon after the swearing-in ceremony, the Council met and decided on a number of serious challenges on the ground. One of which was bring normalcy on the ground; assure the state that the resumption of lectures and academic related tasks will be resumed immediately, and that semester two for 2015 will be commenced and all students will complete their required programmes of studies as planned. 

Actions Taken following the 2015 Kwimberi Report 

Upon receipt of the “Draft Preliminary Report of Investigation Committee into UOG Student Unrest” In order to do all that was necessary, a new management team was put in place and given precise and tight deadlines on specific urgent tasks and responses expected within given time. This has followed the appointment of the interim council- for example; on the agenda was the appointment of an acting Vice Chancellor and acting Pro Vice Chancellor within the first day of the council business. The new administration was basically and principally tasked to quickly regain command and control and manage the worsening situation on the ground, with students refusing to go to lectures, with threats to lives and property on the campus. 

Upon the lawful takeover of the University of Goroka by the Interim Council and its newly appointed administration, and within the four months, that is from 23rd September to December 31st it is the highly considered view that UOG Council and the its Administration have worked very hard to return normalcy back on campus. 

Here are the brief highlights of the Decisions and Actions of the Interim Council and the Administration for the first 100 days. 

Appointment of Interim Council 

Following the gazettal and swearing of the interim council members at the University, in the presence of the Minister, UOG community and the media the council immediately met on Wednesday 23rd September 2015. 

Appointment of Acting Vice Chancellor and Pro Vice Chancellor 

The Council moved to quickly to appoint the Acting Vice Chancellor, Associate Professor John Kola and Dr Samuel Kopamu as his Deputy. Dr Kola is on one year secondment from the University of Papua New Guinea, while Dr Kopamu was appointed from among the senior members of the UOG academic community. 

Suspension of Pro Vice Chancellors 

After the interim management was appointed the Council then moved to suspend the two former TMT members- Drs Michael Mel and Dr James Yoko who were the subject of the investigation commissioned by the Minister for Higher Education, Research, Science an Technology. Their suspension followed an earlier decision by the Minister to terminate former council and also suspended the former Vice Chancellor, Dr Gairo Onagi. 

Extension of Semester 2 to end of November 2015 

Among its priority activities in the first meeting the Council also approved an extension of semester 2 to end of November. This has allowed all students across all programmes of studies to complete their studies sit for final examinations and have them graded to either graduate next year or continue with studies to the next level. 

Suspension and subsequent actions on the Deans of Schools of Education and Humanities 

In the following series of meetings the council was informed of, and become obviously aware and concerned with what was happening on the ground. Therefore as an authority it was desirous of an urgent need to bring order and control as well as restore some sense of trust and confidence among the rank and file of the staff, especially among the senior academics. 

The Deans of schools are part of the top management, in this instance they took sides and have written to higher authorities other than the council and castigated at the manner in which the Minister was going about establishing the interim council, the Deans made statements that deemed to have undermined the efforts of all parties- from the Minister down to the Interim Council and the Vice Chancellor who were making serious attempts to normalise UOG. Factions of staff led by the Deans of Education and Humanities have shown their unwillingness to cooperate, instead they brought up reasons for not complying with directions; even then these reasons or complaints were unacceptable to either the council or the management. 

The urgent business of UOG at that juncture was for all to work in harmony to restore normalcy and return all students to lecture rooms by 21st of September 2015. Any other matters were deemed subsidiary and/or unimportant. 

Subsequently, following internal investigations and with information available to the Management, these were made available to the UOG Staff Disciple Committee met and removed Dr Sam Kari, the Dean of Humanities and had him terminated for cause; the Dean of Education was stood down as Dr Kelep Malpo as the Dean and had her reverted back to her substantive position. 

The Ministerial Investigation Committee Report was released 

On October 9th 2015 a preliminary Report of the Investigation Committee was delivered to the Minister. Upon receipt of the Report, the Minister then wrote to the Chancellor of the Interim Council of Goroka urging him to study the Report and its recommendations and take whatever actions are necessary to restore UOG to its usual operating condition and prominence. From experience and speaking for all members of the Council and its management, it was the most testing time for all- we could make it or break it! At the end the authority of the Council prevailed. 

The rest of the most crucial administrative responsibilities and tasks (taking account of the damning Report by the Independent Investigators into the 2015 UOG Student Boycott) was codenamed mop up operations (MUO). These included careful analysis of the Report and the framing of the charges to the three top management team members: Dr Gairo Onagi, Dr Michael Mel and Dr James Yoko. The three responded to the charges, but the council found these to be shallow, no credible and convincing answers to show for their decisions on the use or misuse of public funds, including “double dipping”, nepotism and curtailing of freedom of speech and association (staff and students). It has come (from the Report) to the attention of Council that there have been constant and repeated diversions of large sums of public funds to paying the former Members of the Top Management Team. That these monies were received in addition to receiving salaries under their respective contracts- all these amounted to double dipping. 

Termination of Gute Security Service Company at UOG campus operations