David Macfarlane
Months of hostilities between Unisa and the Ministry of Education reached boiling point this week when they faced each other in court on Thursday after negotiations to reach a settlement failed.
There is now mounting alarm within the university that the turmoil Unisa’s court application has generated is obscuring, and worsening, a long-standing governance crisis centred on the university’s controversial council, in particular chairperson McCaps Motimele. “Motimele is pulling the strings,” says a senior academic, “and [new vice-chancellor Dr] Barney Pityana is his puppet.”
Unisa applied late last year for an urgent court inderdict against Minister of Education Kader Asmal’s plans to merge the university with Technikon SA and Vista University’s Distance Education Centre as of February 1.
The high court application argues that there have been legal and procedural flaws in Asmal’s handling of the merger and that he has not consulted adequately on the matter. It also accuses Asmal of pursuing a personal agenda against Motimele.
Last week Asmal announced his willingness to delay the merger till April 1 if Unisa withdrew its high court application, which was due to be heard on Tuesday this week. Lawyers for both sides then locked horns, with Unisa postponing the action till Thursday. And on Wednesday Asmal revoked the Government Gazette notice of January 4 that said the merged institution would come into being on February 1.
Despite this, negotiations then deadlocked. Department of Education Director General Thami Mseleku said on Thursday that although the government remains willing to address issues such as the date of the merger, “the matters raised by Unisa for incorporation into a settlement go far beyond process issues and, in effect, are contrary to the prescripts of the Higher Education Act … The proposals from Unisa fundamentally challenge the law and the responsibilities of the government and the minister of education.”
Unisa’s settlement proposals “imply that the minister is a mere bystander”, Mseleku said. The upshot of Thursday’s court hearing is that Unisa’s application is no longer considered urgent. Mseleku said the ministry has informed the Pretoria High Court of its intention to oppose Unisa’s application. which is now on the normal court roll.
One sticking point has been Unisa’s insistence that the minister merely accept its nominations for the interim council that Asmal announced earlier this year would replace all three institutions’ councils and guide the merger process. Unisa academics fear this would guarantee a place for Motimele on the interim council and if that happens, “the whole university will be in an uproar again”, one senior academic observes.
Motimele’s reign has been steeped in controversy for more than a year. Staff complain that he oversteps the traditional boundaries of a council chairperson and interferes constantly in university administration. His and some other council members’ hefty remuneration for duties councillors at most other tertiary institutions perform for free came under fire from the auditor general last year.
He also faces legal action for alleged sexual harassment of former Unisa professor Margaret Orr. And he is one of 12 defendants in an action brought by the special investigating unit involving alleged fraud in tender procedures for school wallcharts in the North West province.
Last week academic department heads told Pityana that internal Unisa disciplinary mechanisms should be used against Motimele. Pityana “appeared to concede this”, says one departmental head. Some staff feel “Pityana should be given a chance provided he is serious about addressing the governance crisis at Unisa. Motimele is simply unacceptable to most Unisa staffers.”
But in a clear sign that Pityana’s honeymoon period as vice-chancellor could be abruptly curtailed if he fails to act decisively and soon, a number of senior black staff told the Mail & Guardian they were boycotting Pityana’s inauguration ceremony on Thursday.
“His own appointment is questionable,” said one, who added that Motimele’s term of office as council chairperson was supposed to have ended in November last year: “Why is he still there? We’ll support any action that gets rid of Motimele.”
Neither Motimele nor Pityana responded to the M&G’s requests for comment.