The announcement that subsidies to National Institute for Professional Advancement (NIPA) have been halted temporarily (see related story) seems to make sense. One hardly can argue with
Education Minister Silveria Jacobs when she pointed out that there are simply too many alarming developments at the school.
It was reported last Monday that a judge had ordered NIPA to pay its ex-director Vernon Richards no less than 280,000 guilders as a termination settlement, because his dismissal had been unlawful. One of the reasons mentioned for the relatively high amount was that the board apparently had never made pension arrangements for its personnel, including Richards, despite collecting premiums for such from their wages.
NIPA appealed that ruling, but the public learned on Tuesday that another former employee had placed a lien on the foundation’s bank accounts for lack of compliance related to an earlier court verdict. This supposedly affected the payment of salaries at the end of January.
The minister said she was looking into the latter, but would be taking the board to court, because the statutes don’t allow her to replace its members. The intention is also for government accountant SOAB to conduct a full investigation into NIPA’s finances.
Under the current circumstances it’s understandable that taxpayers shouldn’t continue to foot the bill for the institution of learning. This is all the more the case in light of the board’s alleged failure to provide the financial information stipulated in the subsidy ordinance.
On the other hand, Jacobs also said her role was to ensure quality SBO education is assured at NIPA, with clearly defined responsibilities of management and staff. The question is whether suspending the funding will contribute to those goals in the very short term.
On January 27 the board was given two weeks to present audited statements and if that deadline is not met advance payments to NIPA will be stopped altogether. Hopefully it won’t come to that, in the interest of the workers and students whose future must continue to have priority status.
