Related: Ljubljana Faculty of Arts Investigated for €1m in Inappropriate Payments
Dr. Branka Kalenić Ramšak, responding to the allegations via her lawyer on Wednesday, said that the payments had been the product of a systemic flaw that she was not aware of when she took over as dean in 2013.
She said that based on explanations from the faculty's services, she had believed the payments were lawful until she realised at the start of her second term in 2015 that this was not the case.
Kalenić Ramšak said that she took steps to tackle the flaw as soon as she became aware of it.
Her comments refer to an internal audit at the faculty which indicated that EUR 1m in unwarranted payments had been made to senior employees in the past decade.
The audit, ordered by the chancellor of the University of Ljubljana, after the faculty's new dean Roman Kuhar alerted him of his suspicions, showed deans and deputy deans received office holders' allowance of EUR 1,000 and 500 a month, although the payment had already been factored in in their regular pay.
Dr. Branka Kalenić Ramšak. Photo: ds-rs.si
Commenting on her own allegedly contentious earnings, the former dean said these concerned not her office but other activities "such as lectureship and Slovenian studies departments at foreign universities".
A press release from her lawyer also noted that Kalenić Ramšak had accepted her "objective responsibility" by tendering her resignation as University of Ljubljana vice chancellor on 21 September.
Ramšak offered her resignation the same day that the news about the audit broke. Chancellor Igor Papič accepted the resignation in order to disburden the university and allow it to work in normal conditions.
Addressing reporters today, Papič said that he had been under pressure by some people to stop the efforts to get to the bottom of the contentious payments.
He would not say who was pressuring him, but he said that he would not yield. He announced a series of measures to prevent wrongdoing in the future, including by staffing the auditing service.
He said that they would be looking for accountability for the contentious payments after law enforcement authorities have done their work. The case is being examined by the prosecution.
The chancellor has already called on the deans of the other 25 faculties to make a brief review of their financial operations and report back to him whether their faculties made such payments as well.
"I have received written statements from all 25 deans, all of whom state that, to their best knowledge, they have not detected such practice," Papič said, adding that deans urged the university to audit the faculties' operations.
