Mallard push to sack Wananga council criticised

Te Wananga o Aotearoa says a push by Education Minister Trevor Mallard to sack its council and appoint a commissioner is unjustified given its current position and healthy projections.

A spokesman for the Te Awamutu-based institute said current student enrolments were 45,896, about four per cent above the same time last year.

Enrolments represented 22,349 equivalent full-time students (efts).

The wananga is confident it will achieve its budget target of 28,000 efts for the year and may even exceed it.

"Our financial position is sound with the wananga running very close to budget projections," the spokesman said.

A short-term $20 million loan was approved by the Government in May, when Mr Mallard said the wananga was on the brink of insolvency.

Only $4m of a Government $20m loan had been used, the wananga spokesman said.

The wananga expected to move into a permanent cash surplus position by the end of August.

"Our current projected cashflow surplus is expected to be just over $3m on December 30," the spokesman said.

Mr Mallard yesterday moved further towards appointing a commissioner, which he said was necessary because there were serious risks to the wananga's long-term viability.

He gave the wananga three weeks to provide good reasons why he should not appoint a commissioner.

The council has said it will take full advantage of that opportunity.

The spokesman said the council was determined to remain in place and believed it had already provided the minister with sufficient information to establish it was in control of all wananga operations.

Yesterday the wananga assured staff it was business as usual. In a staff newsletter, chief operating officer John Mote said: "It is important that I confirm again that we are in a strong position to manage the normal education functions of the wananga and our business capability is equally solid.

"In hindsight, it may have been better to have spent less of our 2003 cash surplus last year on new campus facilities.

"However, our growth and the opportunity that has been delivered to tauira (students) could only have occurred if we took some risks and created a new model of inclusive tertiary education.

"The minister's decision can best be viewed as a political response to what now are historical financial and planning issues."

- nzpa