Phillip vanNiekerk
>From the Editor’s Desk
In his lengthy reply last week to Evidence wa ka Ngobeni’s article, ”Top academic in R20-million funding row”, former University of the North vice-chancellor Professor Njabulo Ndebele failed to refute the essence of the story: that an independent commission of inquiry found that the funding for Ndebele’s company, Edupark, was not authorised by the university’s council.
In fact, Ndebele does not once mention this commission, the central plank of the story. The inquiry was chaired by respected attorney Phineus Mojapelo, a member of the South African Law Commission and the Judicial Service Commission.
Wa ka Ngobeni did not rely solely on the commission’s extensive findings, but also confirmed its main allegations with key senior players on campus. Perhaps the most important of these corroborative sources was the chair of the council, Benny Boshielo, who openly criticised Edupark and confirmed that his council had not backed its R20-million funding.
Ndebele accuses Wa ka Ngobeni of ignoring the version of events offered by John Wiltshire, the head of Edupark and Ndebele’s righthand man.
Wiltshire told him that the council had approved the pay-out. Wa ka Ngobeni quoted him fully on this, and on other aspects of the story. How can this possibly be construed as ignoring him?
For the sake of clarity, let’s recap some of the inquiry’s key findings:
l the University of the North has created a competitor [Edupark] for itself at its own expense;
l the directors of Edupark, Ndebele and Wiltshire, who were both on the pay-roll of the University of the North, failed to protect the interests of the institution;
l although the university pays rent to Edupark, the company continues to use university resources for ”free”. For example, the university spent R800 000 to launch Edupark last year;
l although the university led the Edupark project, its founding documents make no mention of it. There is also no contractual agreement between Edupark and the university; and
l Ndebele acted against the university’sinterests and in the interest of Edupark, which has been enriched by more than R15,2-million at the institution’s expense.
To conclude, however, I would like to quote Wa ka Ngobeni himself: ”Instead of rebutting these findings, and confronting the core of the story head on – namely that an impoverished university was used to pay for and start a private company – Ndebele embarked on a vicious attack on my integrity. He attributed what he saw as my journalistic weaknesses to the Mail & Guardian’s efforts to ‘fast track’ young black reporters. Such an attack was naturally hurtful, but also served to buttress my confidence in the article. I stand by the story.” And so does the newspaper.