By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

WITH less than a month to go before the New Year, The College of The Bahamas will not meet its deadline for transitioning to university this year, Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald confirmed yesterday.

Progress has been made towards getting the college ready for its next big step and, until recently, COB officials had hoped that the University of The Bahamas Bill would be enacted in Parliament before this year’s end.

However, at a staff meeting in October, COB President Rodney Smith made the decision to allow for further consultations on the proposed legislation before sending it to the College Council and, later, to Cabinet.

Mr Fitzgerald said yesterday: “(The bill is) almost done. I spoke with the president yesterday. He told me they are discussing it at council. They are meeting with all the stakeholders to discuss it by the end of the year. In the early part of next year it should come (to Parliament).”

However, Union of Tertiary Educators of the Bahamas (UTEB) President Mark Humes said that no further consultations on the Bill have taken place since Mr Smith called for more talks weeks ago.

“The president met with some of the union members but nothing came out of it so now the council has taken it up to continue the consultative process,” he said. “Since the revised draft has come out, there have been no meetings or real consultations so nothing has happened since the revised draft has come out.

“We’ll see what happens when the group meets when the semester starts anew. The problem has been that this is one of the few processes where all stakeholders were not involved in the drafting of the document.” In addition, Mr Fitzgerald responded to calls from UTEB to have a forensic audit of COB conducted before the institution transitions to university, saying he does not see this as necessary.

UTEB has long called for a forensic audit of COB.

The calls grew earlier this year after The Tribune revealed that the college was in contravention of College of the Bahamas Act for a number of years during which it failed to conduct annual audits, preventing it from accessing a multi-million dollar loan from the Caribbean Development Bank that is intended to aid its transition to university.

The Tribune also reported the contents of a Baker Tilly & Gomez audit into COB for the fiscal year ending 2011, which revealed that the institution had poor internal controls.

More recently, COB revealed that it had alerted the police to suspected fraud at the college.

Asked about calls for a forensic audit yesterday, Mr Fitzgerald said: “I think the audits are being done now from what I understand so the audit for 2012 and 2013 should be completed I understand very shortly. I don’t see why you need a forensic audit when you have an audit.

“I’m not sure if (Mr Humes) has a particular issue, for if so then he has to say what that issue is. That’s when you call for a forensic audit. I have no idea what his intent is.”

In response, Mr Humes said: “Question is why won’t they have the forensic audit? You are talking about transitioning from college to university. It would be a great idea to have a good sense of the college’s financial state as it transitions to university. What harm would it have? The minister should be ashamed of himself because he hasn’t seen the college’s records in how many years? He says a forensic audit is not necessary but when was the last time did he saw an audit and why aren’t they in the House (of Assembly)?”