Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
The University of Transkei (Unitra), which has no money to pay salaries, invited moneylending companies on to campus to lend money to staff.
The companies lend up to R2 000 a time and use the university’s staff in the salaries department to access information and help deduct money to repay the loans.
Recently, 90% of Unitra’s academic staff signed a petition demanding their administration solve the institution’s financial crisis.
“Management responded [to the cash crisis] cynically by inviting loan sharks to campus and arranging for them to be paid by stop order directly from salaries of hapless staff members,” reads the petition.
“On August 2 [acting principal] Professor [Duma] Malaza announced in a circular that we were not going to be paid until the next budget in April [2000]. Many suspected that salaries were to be withheld in order to bludgeon academics into accepting, uncritically, Malaza’s proposed plans for the new size and shape of the academic sector.
“On August 12 Malaza announced that ‘we will be in a position to pay salaries on August 15’. This was after important decisions were taken in a series of meetings which seems to have served the purpose of facilitating agreement.
“Again, on September 6, Malaza issued a circular in which he announced that the university was not in a position to pay salaries on September 15.”
Staff salaries were not paid last week.
Unitra representative Karuna Gopal confirmed that moneylending agencies are offering their services on campus. Gopal said the university treats them “like any other company that wishes to provide services to staff members”.
Unitra’s management provides them with office space – including temporary offices and lecture rooms. Gopal said this space was provided free of rent. The companies also use university notice boards to promote their businesses.
Gopal said Unitra does not have any policy that forbids the management to permit loan agencies to operate their businesses on the campus. “Yes, they [loan sharks] are allowed to address staff members on campus, like any other company which is interested in providing services to the staff. But they must get authority from management first,” said Gopal. “It is up to staff members to decide to respond to the loan sharks. No one is forced to do that.”
Gopal added that all moneylending agencies operating on campus have prior authority from the university management, but denied they have been called in to provide financial assistance to staff members because management has no money to pay staff salaries.
The salary crisis at the university can be traced to February this year when the university struggled to meet its staff wage bill and shifted its pay day from the 15th to the end of the month.
The university then owed staffers half a month’s salary, but initially refused to pay it, saying many employees owed them money.
In July, Malaza warned that the university was headed for a massive financial deficit due to a cash-flow crisis.
In the past three years the university has accumulated student debt totalling R35- million and has recorded low student enrolments, which reduces the amount of funding it will receive from the government when it allocates subsidies next April.
Last week Malaza said officials from the Department of Education accompanied him to meet representatives from a top financial institution in Gauteng in a bid to find financial aid. The purpose of the meeting, said Malaza “was to assess the need for immediate assistance to the University of Transkei in order to meet immediate operational and restructuring costs, including payment of salaries for this month [September]”.