/ 6 May 2011

Politics ‘clouds Blade’s judgment’

On April 18 the council of the University of Zululand (UniZulu) was disbanded by Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande and its functions were taken over by an administrator.

This was a drastic step and the obvious assumption is that something was seriously amiss. A council is, after all, the highest authority in a university — according to the Higher Education Act it is ultimately accountable for all decisions taken at the institution.

A council determines a university’s mission, objectives, goals, strategies and related policies. It must ensure that the institutional environment is conducive to their attainment and that it is financially secure and viable. In short it must act in the best interests of the institution — and by extension in the best interests of the wider community it serves.

There are a number of curious and disturbing features in what happened at UniZulu. The minister’s letter to the chairperson of the council, conveying his decision to act on the recommendation of the independent assessor he had appointed late last year, gave no clear reason — let alone a convincing one — for his decision to dissolve the council. There was a reference in parenthesis to “the serious breach of trust between the council and the vice-chancellor” but nothing further was said about that.

The whole process leading up to this was extraordinary. In November it was announced in the Government Gazette that Nzimande, using his wide powers under the Act, had appointed Hugh Africa, former vice-chancellor at Vista University, to report to him on “problems” at UniZulu, including “governance, financial management and procurement practices”.

Bizarrely, the minister did not approach the council or seek its views before appointing the assessor, nor did he inform the council of the basis for his decision. He had not even consulted the five ministerial appointees on the council.

There were serious concerns that Nzimande might be acting on a one-sided version of events — possibly presented by the new vice-chancellor, Fikile Mazibuko, who had taken up her position at the beginning of 2010 and who had rapidly found herself at odds with the council that appointed her.

This was bad enough. Worse was to follow.

Deep historical roots
Africa and his two assistants started their investigation at the end of November. In its formal submission, the council said that it fully recognised that UniZulu faced serious challenges — mostly with deep historical roots — as did many other South African universities. However, it noted significant improvements since 2002, when the higher education system was reorganised and UniZulu was given its new mandate as a comprehensive institution.

There had been a remarkable and sustained turnaround in financial management and governance under the two preceding councils, working with an outstanding chief financial officer who came to the university in 2003.

At that time UniZulu was operating on a huge overdraft facility, had no asset register and no financial or procurement policies and procedures. All were now in place.

Unqualified audits
In the preceding three years the university had not had to use an overdraft facility and it had received unqualified audits. The current council, which took office two years ago, had also taken up a broad range of other issues, including quality assurance and the development of a comprehensive strategic plan to address the university’s academic mandate more vigorously (where the senate’s record had been unimpressive).

There were also serious inefficiencies in the registrar’s office, notably involving student registration and planning, and these led to the council suspending the registrar last year, pending an investigation after repeated warnings to management.

In mid-January Nzimande wrote to Bheki Ntuli, the chairperson of the council, to say that he had “extended the period of the [assessor’s] investigation until the end of January 2011 to enable the team to conclude the report with the necessary rigour”. Nothing further was heard.
Then, out of the blue on March 18 — a Friday on the eve of a long weekend — Nzimande directed his department’s acting director general to arrange for the council to meet him urgently to receive the report. The department was adamant that the meeting should take place on Wednesday March 23 in Cape Town.

Not surprisingly, only 10 of the 26 members of council were able to drop everything and get there. The chairperson was in fact in hospital, while his deputy, advocate Boyce Mkhize, was in the United States on business.

Unexpected recommendation
The minister, who was in Cape Town, did not attend the meeting. The acting director general handed over the report and the council was told to submit its response by no later than Friday March 25 — less than two days to respond to a report that, as the members present rapidly established, made the totally unexpected recommendation that the council should be dissolved.

The acting director general said the minister would make a final decision by March 29 and that the report would be published in the Government Gazette as required by the Act.

Reading the report, we discovered that it had ignored the council’s detailed submission and there was not a single mention of council initiatives and interventions.

Instead, the report claimed that the council was operating “in a world of its own not recognising — [the] serious nature [of problems] that undermine the effective functioning of the university”. The council was portrayed as a body hostile to the vice-chancellor and the academic enterprise. Unsupported allegations of negligence and malpractice cumulatively created a highly negative picture. Defamatory allegations of corruption in the council, made mainly by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and the student representative council (SRC), featured prominently.

The council convened an emergency meeting in Durban for Monday March 28 — a meeting Mazibuko, Nehawu and the SRC, which had gone to the Cape to receive the report, declined to attend. Arguing on the basis of administrative justice and the audi alteram partem (hear the other side) rule, the council requested the minister to give it a reasonable opportunity to respond before exercising his powers.

Fait accompli
But, as the council was to discover, the minister had already published the report in the Government Gazette on the Friday before (March 25). In fact, because the gazette is generally printed on the Wednesday of the week in which it is published, the report was presumably being printed while the council was meeting the department in Cape Town.

However, Nzimande did give the council an extension until Thursday April 7 to respond. We met this tight deadline, submitting a detailed 21-page response correcting inaccuracies and challenging some of the most damaging allegations and misrepresentations. The overwhelming majority of the council members, both external and internal to UniZulu, endorsed this document, which the Mail & Guardian subsequently published in full on its website (www.mg.co.za/zululand).

Yet, on Monday April 11, the minister notified the chairman that the council would be disbanded. Just as the assessor had disregarded the council’s submission, so too had the minister.

The ridiculous timeframes from March 18 onwards underline our conviction that there was little if any interest in giving serious consideration to the council’s case.

Predetermined conclusion
Curiously, Nzimande’s letter to the chairperson contains the following statement: “Although it is acknowledged that the existing council and management are attempting to perform their functions within sound principles of governance and management and that the university has received an unqualified audit, the factual situation as described by the independent assessor is not conducive to the effective provisioning of quality education.”

What are we to make of this? How is one to interpret this process except to say that it not only showed scant respect for the council or the integrity of its members but also seemed to be moving towards a predetermined conclusion?

The many challenges, threats and issues of concern at the UniZulu go much wider and deeper than a confrontation between the council and the vice-chancellor. However, in so far as it was a question of supporting either one or the other, it is extraordinary that the minister chose to dissolve the council, with its demonstrable commitment to good governance, while keeping in place a vice-chancellor whose judgment on administrative and academic matters, and whose observance of good-governance requirements, the council had quickly found grounds to question.

For instance, as our 21-page document to Nzimande explains more fully, within the first six months of her appointment, Mazibuko proposed a new executive management structure, uncosted but with a number of new posts, that would have pushed the university into the red. The council told her to go back, think again and present a costed proposal.

As for the support she received from Nehawu and the newly elected SRC leadership, consider the union’s material interests in policies and procedures surrounding jobs and the opportunities that go with them; and the SRCs, which nowadays have access to considerable resources, might be less than enthusiastic about accountability and controls, and are themselves ladders for political advancement.

And Nzimande? Is it too far-fetched to speculate that when the vice-chancellor appealed to him for protection, he saw a splendid opportunity to cultivate two constituencies — Nehawu and the students — that could be invaluable in his own political manoeuvres in KwaZulu-Natal and nationally? Was the council sacrificed for these ends?

One can only guess at the minister’s reasons for riding roughshod over the body charged with governing a public university but the fact is that he has done so. This is the most disturbing feature of the sorry saga.

Douglas Irvine is emeritus professor of political studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he was also dean of the faculty of social science. He has served as a ministerial appointee
on UniZulu’s council since 2002.