David Macfarlane
The University of the Transkei (Unitra) could close within three months. Students at the tottering institution returned this week from their mid-year vacation to hear that huge debts in the form of unpaid student fees, tax arrears and a bank overdraft mean that Unitra can keep going only till November.
Past and present students who have not paid fees were particularly targeted when Professor Nicky Morgan, Unitra’s state-appointed administrator, addressed students on Tuesday. If 50% of outstanding fees are not paid by the end of this week, closure would become a real possibility, he said.
Morgan said past students of Unitra still owe R39-million in fees, and students this year owe R44-million. Although Unitra reduced its overdraft of R119-million to R86-million within the past four months, its R140-million government subsidy, received in April, lasted merely two months before the university was in the red again.
He also revealed that Unitra had only R39-million left in its coffers. To add to the university’s stresses, it learnt from the South African Revenue Service last month that it owes R22-million in back taxes.
Morgan said the university would contemplate a full-page newspaper advertisement publishing the names of fee defaulters.
”If we don’t collect our resources Unitra will not only be lost to you but will be lost to generations to come,” he told the students.
”I wanted to point out to students the extreme possibilities facing Unitra if we do not reduce our dependence on our overdraft,” Morgan told the Mail & Guardian. ”It would be less desirable, and complicated, to close the university. We have to demonstrate we’re serious about collecting fees … We’re more aggressive now about this.”
Minister of Education Kader Asmal told Unitra not to register any first-year students this year, Morgan says.
”We appealed, and the minister said, okay, register students, but retrench, close what’s not viable, and transfer the affected students to other institutions.”
The university retrenched 282 workers in May. Morgan says further retrenchments are possible, but ”there’s a limit to which one can burden workers with the costs of restructuring”. He told the students that some departments and faculties could close.
Unitra has just under 4 500 students, nearly 300 academic staff and about 600 non-academic staff. Its catchment area for student enrolment covers 70% of the Eastern Cape.