MPs call for heads to roll at Fort Hare

Chair of Parliament’s higher education portfolio committee Tebogo Letsie and other MPs walk through the rubble of the destroyed wellness centre at Fort Hare University on Tuesday. Photo: Johnnie Isaac

Tebogo Letsie, the chair of Parliament’s higher education portfolio committee, says someone must account for the damages estimated at R500-million at the University of Fort Hare.

He was speaking at the university’s campus in Alice on Tuesday, where members of the committee held an oversight visit.

The MPs met with university management, union officials and student representatives.

The visit follows protests at the university that resulted in the damage, as well as revelations of corruption involving R17-million in the ICT department.

Letsie (ANC) criticised the leadership of the university, reminding them that they do not own the institution, which is publicly funded. “Institutional autonomy goes hand in hand with accountability,” he said.

He called for management and the university council to institute “consequence management”.

“You can’t be given a responsibility to manage such a massive institution, but when things fall apart, the management blames everybody without taking responsibility,” said Letsie.

In a thinly veiled reference to vice-chancellor Sakhela Buhlungu, whose resignation student protesters have called for, Letsie said: “Can you imagine a JSE-listed company appointing a CEO, then things go wrong. The company loses value, and the CEO blames everybody and does not take accountability. The board would make sure there’s accountability, but in this institutio,n the council doesn’t seem to think the CEO must be accountable.”

Letsie also suggested union representatives have been intimidated out of talking to the oversight committee. He also pointed out that student representatives whom the committee wanted to talk to have been barred from the institution.

“There’s a breakdown of trust between the students and management. Students don’t feel like this management is concerned about their well-being,” said Letsie.

A group of students held a picket at the start of the oversight meeting, and members of the committee went to address them.

Lihle Phakophi, a student representative and member of the EFF Students Command, said:

“We are tired of the management, with the council that can’t hold the vice-chancellor accountable.”

MP Mnqobi Msezane (MKP) said the state of the institution was appalling. “As the MKP, we are going to write to the minister and request that this institution be placed under administration immediately,” said Msezane.

Buhlungu told the committee that the university is in discussions with the police and crime intelligence to get to the bottom of the investigation into what led to the torching of the university.

“Lots of students in science and agriculture lost work that was in the laboratories. We have to find alternative offices and other teaching venues for the university,” said Buhlungu.

Defensive statement

The university, in a statement, reacted angrily to Msezane’s call:

“The University of Fort Hare unequivocally rejects any suggestion or call for it to be placed under administration. Such an intervention is an extreme and exceptional measure reserved for institutions that have suffered a complete collapse of governance and management conditions that clearly do not exist at Fort Hare.

“The University’s governance structures, including Council, Senate, and the Management Executive Committee, remain fully functional, duly constituted, and actively executing their statutory responsibilities.

“Over the past three years, the University of Fort Hare has made demonstrable strides in stabilising its finances, improving audit outcomes, expanding research productivity, and restoring academic credibility in line with its Decade of Renewal strategy. The University has also secured one of the largest private-sector financial endowments ever recorded for a higher education institution in the province and is advancing plans to establish a pioneering Faculty of Veterinary Science. This is further evidence of its growth, confidence, and institutional maturity.

“Any attempt to invoke administration without due legal and factual basis would not only be unjustified but would also constitute a serious encroachment on the University’s autonomy.”

Promoted under a cloud

On Friday, we reported that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) had named four suspects in the ICT department who were involved in the R17-million fraud. One of these was Mfundo “Shakes” Scott.

GroundUp has learnt that in April, the SIU informed the vice-chancellor that Scott and the ICT department were under investigation.

Yet on 30 July, the vice-chancellor announced that Scott had been appointed director of ICT, effective 1 August.

In September, the SIU provided the university with an affidavit outlining the evidence of its allegations against the four people ICT personnel, including Scott. The university has been aware of this affidavit for weeks. GroundUp sent questions to the university on 14 October. It refused to answer them. We therefore published on 17 October.

Yet, in a statement in response to our report, the university claimed that it had informed the four that they would be suspended on 11 October, and formally suspended them on 16 October, two days after we sent them questions.

In the same statement, the university said Scott’s appointment had been approved in April when no evidence had yet been presented against him. At the time, Scott was running the ICT department in what the university called an “interim capacity”. But this does not explain why the university didn’t suspend Scott and instead continued with his appointment that was announced on 30 July, despite management knowing that Scott and ICT were under investigation by the SIU.

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