Mukoni T Ratshitanga
MANAGEMENT at the University of Zululand, facing a barrage of corruption allegations, has ordered its staff and students to shut up or produce evidence to back the claims.
The administration, already rocked by revelations surrounding fake degrees and fake financial credits to students, issued what amounts to an ultimatum on the campus last week.
The rector and vice-chancellor, CRM Dlamini, ordered “any person who has information in the form of evidence to bring it to my office within the next seven days.
“Any person who persists with unfounded rumours and allegations thereafter will … be acting in bad faith and risking disciplinary action.”
The warning came as the Ministry of Education voiced concern about the university. The department’s tertiary education director, Itumeleng Mosala, said Dlamini “has closed the door to us … He says we are interfering, and we are trying to persuade him. We can simply use the new Act [which, once passed into law, will empower the ministry to intervene on strife-torn campuses].”
Several of the allegations stem from the university’s branch of the South African Students’ Congress (Sasco).
The university initially denied the allegations out of hand. Documentary evidence handed to the Mail & Guardian, however, does raise some questions about events at the university.
One document details a probe last year by a Durban firm of chartered accountants which uncovered payments to an individual “outside the scope of normal business practice. Such payments were not authorised and could have been irregular,” the firm, Ngubane and Company, said.
The auditors found that the university’s catering manager, GJ Forte, received an untaxed management fee above his annual salary worth R330 000 over the two years to December 1995. The auditing firm warned that the university could be open to a tax liability of R145 000 if it did not recover this money from Forte.
Ngubane also said part of the management fee Forte received – a cut of the early settlement discount given by suppliers – should have gone into the university’s coffers.
The university said this week a subsequent investigation headed by the university council’s interim chairman, Dr M Tshabalala, and including members of Sasco, had cleared Forte.
Kagiso Trust, which provides bursaries to many of the university’s students, also confirmed this week that it had received no audited statements from the university since 1991. The trust had received apologies from the university, said its director, Horst Kleinschmidt.
The university, which last week termed the allegations “absolute nonsense”, this week said its finance division was too understaffed to respond in time for publication.
Other documents seen by the M&G show that the university spent more than R1,5-million between February 1995 and June 1997 on payments to a “curtain and fabric consultant”.
However, a university representative said this week audit figures to date indicated that R600 000 had been spent on “linen items”.
The university’s government subsidy last year was R5,3-million.
The representative said an audit is currently being carried out into the purchase of curtains, mattress covers and other linen items.
“This was occasioned by the wholesale theft from the residences of thousands of rands worth of these items, seemingly in November-December 1996. When students arrived for the 1997 year, they had to be supplied with these items.”
The public protector last year investigated the issuing of fake degrees on the campus.
The university last month suspended five finance officials after an investigation found they had credited thousands of rands to students who owed fees. The initial probe suggested that at least R600 000 was involved in the scam.