Sechaba ka’Nkosi
The council of the Vaal Triangle Technikon was scrambling this week to stave off threats by Minister of Education Sibusiso Bengu to suspend its state grants and disband the council.
Bengu sent a memo to the technikon last Friday, advising the council of his readiness to take such action if it does not revise its constitution.
The council began preparing legal papers to challenge the minister’s threats in the high court, but at an urgent meeting on Wednesday night decided instead to choose the path of reconciliation with the minister.
These moves are the latest in a year- long battle at the technikon to suspend its rector, Aubrey Mokadi, on the grounds he allegedly used technikon facilities for personal reasons, was an inefficient manager and was nepotistic. Mokadi was suspended by the council and technikon management with full benefits last year.
Bengu appointed former University of the Western Cape deputy vice- chancellor Professor Jaap Durand as an independent assessor to investigate Mokadi and the problems at the institution. Durand found the council was responsible for many of the problems at the technikon.
At Wednesday’s meeting, a letter addressed to Bengu and drafted by the council’s chair, Chrizaane van Eeden, was presented to the council. The letter rejected Durand’s recommendations out of hand. It accused Durand and, by implication, Bengu of having a vested interest in the outcome of the investigation into Mokadi. It also accused the minister of failing to intervene speedily in the stand-off between the technikon and its former head.
“We wish to stress the assessor’s report is for the most part based entirely on perceptions,” the letter stated. “We wish to draw your attention to the brief period of time which the assessor spent on our campus, and stress it is impossible to conduct a proper fact-finding exercise in such a short space of time.”
By the end of Wednesday’s meeting, the council decided to reject the letter and to use it as the basis for further discussions with the ministry. The council remained divided about whether to continue with court action.
The council had instituted its own inquiry into Mokadi’s tenure as rector, headed by advocate Ronald Sutherland, SC. He is expected to deliver his findings next month.
Bengu’s brief to Durand was to investigate problems relating to the normal functioning of the technikon and deteriorating relationships among stakeholders – particularly student and worker organisations on the one hand, and the technikon’s council, management and staff union on the other.
In his report to Bengu last month, Durand accused the council of using Mokadi as a scapegoat for the institution’s inabilities to deal with the challenges of the 1990s and the need for transformation.
Durand argued that while the Mokadi debacle fell outside the scope of his investigation, his suspension had become a catalyst that brought attitudinal and managerial weaknesses to the fore.
“The changeover from a traditionally white Afrikaans institution to an institution in which black students outnumbered their white counterparts by eight to three was difficult enough to accept and, more importantly, to assimilate – a problem shared by other institutions,” said the report.
Durand urged Bengu to use his powers to withhold payment if the council failed to comply with reasonable conditions imposed, or close the institution to make the recommendations more effective.
Van Eeden this week downplayed the extent of the deteriorating relations between her council and Bengu.
She said the council had good relations with the ministry; that Bengu acted within his rights in terms of the law by appointing an assessor to investigate the problems at the institution; and that she acted within her rights to provide leadership as chair of the council when she drafted the discussion document.
“We hold the ministry in high regard and that is why we have always indicated our intentions to get into meaningful discussions to resolve our differences,” she said.