On Monday, a special website set up for this purpose went live: meldpuntyantai.nl. The university council, particularly the personnel faction and student party DAG, has repeatedly expressed their doubts about the employees’ time sheets for the project.
After an investigation, DAG concluded in August that the university had spent much more time on ‘Yantai’ than they officially reported. This would mean that the costs recorded bythe RUG were artificially low.
The university has always denied doing so. But in early October, they announced they would investigate the matter further. ‘We take the signals from our own university community about accounting for the hours seriously.’
Eleven questions
The investigation will be performed by Leendert Klaassen, acting mayor of the municipality of Westerwolde. Klaassen had announced earlier that he would set up a contact point.
Since Monday, 5 November, employees have been able to report the number of hours they worked on ‘Yantai’ by answering eleven questions. The website will be active until 23 November.
The questions include who they worked with, how many hours were accounted for (over 2015, 2016, and 2017), whether this matched the agreements in the employee’s contract, whether the employee had sufficient time work on both ‘Yantai’ and their regular duties, and whether they put in any overtime.
Supervisory council
The review has been formally ordered by the supervisory council, which is tasked with overseeing the board and the university’s management. This was decided because university council members have also worked hours on the project.
The Inspectorate of Education will perform a separate investigation at the behest of the Ministry of Education. This investigation focuses on DAG’s accusation that the RUG used public funds for the Chinese project even though they weren’t allowed to.