David Macfarlane Unisas controversial council is continuing its defiance of the government to the bitter end. It rejects the auditor generals recent report on the remuneration of councillors and is resisting Minister of Education Kader Asmals intention to dissolve the council. This week also brought further upheavals among senior management: vice-principal (tuition) Professor Simon Maimela again tried to get the councils chairperson, advocate McCaps Motimele, barred from the campus and was promptly suspended for his troubles. “Matters have reached totally ridiculous proportions,” says a senior Unisa academic. “Asmal must dissolve both the council and the entire senior management theyre all in cahoots and all incompetent.” Another academic commented that the struggle is between the council and the whole university. “Shoot the driver rather than let the whole bus go over the precipice,” he says. Unisas council has been at loggerheads with Asmal for months, especially on the remuneration of council members and on the councils refusal to heed Asmals request that it refrain from appointing a new vice-chancellor pending the universitys merger with Technikon SA and Vista Universitys Distance Education Centre. The merger is a prominent component of the national plan for higher education, which Asmal unveiled in February. The plan seeks to redress decades of apartheid-induced inequities and inefficiencies in tertiary education.
In September the council went ahead and confirmed former Human Rights Commission chairperson Dr Barney Pityana as vice-chancellor for a full five-year term. It also ratified several other senior management appointments for multi-year terms again in defiance of Asmal. The minister has said he wants to avoid wastage of taxpayers money that will be involved in paying off members of senior management who do not find positions in the new distance education mega-institution, to be called the Open Learning University of South Africa. Unisas council last week rejected the auditor generals recent findings concerning remuneration of council members. The auditor generals report says that about R800 000 of taxpayers money has been dished out to members since March last year in contravention of Unisa policies, and that some councillors have been claiming payment for meetings they did not attend. Councillors at most other tertiary institutions perform their duties for free in the public interest and are generally reimbursed only for travel or accommodation costs. Announcing the auditor generals findings two weeks ago, Asmal gave the council until Friday last week to decide how it would implement the reports recommendations, which include the recovery of excessive payments. But far from contemplating how to implement the recommendations, the councils executive committee deplores the auditor general reports “negative effect on the integrity, dignity and reputation of council members”, according to minutes of a committee meeting held last week. Concerning the dissolution of the council, the minutes mandate a “task team”, under the leadership of Motimele and Pityana, “to protect the interests of the university from being interfered with in a manner inconsistent with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, the Higher Education Act, or any other law”. Asmal requested two weeks ago that the Unisa council nominate four members for an interim council to replace the present body. These nominations were supposed to reach Asmal this week. Minutes of last weeks executive committee meeting make no mention of these nominations. Instead they record the committees resolution that the task team under Motimele and Pityana “report back to the full council early in January 2002”. In further high-level management tussles, Maimela tried this week as he did last month to eject Motimele from the campus by having the locks to Motimeles office changed. Maimela has been adamant in challenging the legality of Pityanas appointment and insisting that he (Maimela) remains acting vice-chancellor. Apparently acting on behalf of Pityana, vice-principal (planning and research) Professor David Masoma promptly suspended Maimela.