The Unisa controversy rumbles on with a court application to have the vice-chancellor’s recent appointment declared invalid
David Macfarlane
First the inauguration, then the court action. Shortly after donning his new academic robes, Unisa vice-chancellor Barney Pityana faces high court action that seeks to have his appointment declared invalid. And ongoing power struggles at the university have seen its two most powerful organs, the council and the senate, clashing yet again over who exactly runs the country’s largest tertiary institution.
Pityana, council chairperson McCaps Motimele and the university itself are the targets of a high court application brought by vice-principal Professor Simon Maimela. This is the sequel to an especially turbulent week at Unisa, in November last year, which saw Motimele, Pityana and Maimela as the chief protagonists in a governance crisis that has been afflicting Unisa for more than a year.
As acting vice-chancellor at the time, Maimela announced late in November that he was closing the offices of the council and ordering Motimele and “his supporters” off the campus “with immediate effect”. Maimela cited legal opinion that adjudged certain actions of the council to be ultra vires (beyond its powers); in this, he was also backing the university’s highest executive body, the senate, in its condemnation of the council actions.
On the same day, Motimele struck back by dismissing Maimela as acting vice-chancellor; Maimela rejected Motimele’s power to do so and insisted he was still in his post.
But Motimele had another card to play: he said vice-chancellor-designate Pityana, who had been due to assume office in January, had assumed duty the day before. Maimela was left with no choice but to clear out his office.
Pityana’s appointment itself fomented division on the campus and aroused the ire of Minister of Education Kader Asmal, who had asked that long-term senior appointments be put on hold pending Unisa’s merger with Technikon SA and Vista University’s Distance Education Centre.
Now the validity of Pityana’s appointment is under fire. Maimela’s application argues that Unisa did not follow its own procedures for appointing a vice-chancellor. Bodies such as the senate were not consulted, as required by law; and candidates for the post made no public presentations, which Unisa regulations require.
Pityana’s legal ability to assume his Unisa post when he did in November is also now contested. Maimela’s application argues that, as chair of the Human Rights Commission, Pityana could not resign from the commission without three months’ notice, except with Parliament’s agreement.
Written communications from Pityana to Unisa on this matter are, Maimela’s application argues, seemingly contradictory. In an e-mail to Unisa staff in November, Pityana wrote that Parliament “has released me earlier to assume my duties at Unisa”.
But in a letter to Motimele, also in November, he said “the Presidency” had given him leave of absence for December. This letter, Maimela’s application argues, “clearly shows that the matter had not been considered by Parliament”, as required by law.
Motimele and Pityana also loom large in the latest conflict between the council and the senate. Motimele appears to have ridden roughshod again over the senate’s authority by rejecting two senior academics, Professors Phillip Mohr and Ina Grbe, whom the senate elected last month as its representatives on the council.
Pityana’s role in the fracas is also under fire: having endorsed the election of Mohr and Grbe, and carried their names to the council, he apparently had his arm twisted there, and rapidly backtracked.
Matters then went from bad to worse when Pityana took the matter back to the senate, according to Mohr and Grbe. Following a complex discussion of racial representativeness, and of senate rules concerning elections, Pityana “simply made a ruling without putting the issue to the vote”, Mohr and Grbe say in a statement circulated to Unisa staff. The upshot was that Mohr and Grbe withdrew on principle, and two other members of senate were appointed.
“Pressure to reconsider the results of the senate elections came from council, particularly the chairperson of council,” say Mohr and Grbe. The council’s inclination is “to completely disregard senate”. Senate has become a “lame-duck body … its authority has constantly been undermined over the past two years”.
Speaking on behalf of Pityana, Unisa spokesperson Doreen Gough said: “Council noted the matter [of the election of two senate representatives to council] but no pressure was brought to bear by the council. At the meeting of senate the majority of members agreed to follow the procedure that allowed more equity in senate’s representation on council … The current state of governance health at Unisa is good.”
On Maimela’s court action, Gough said although Pityana is cited as a respondent, he “regards himself as not being involved as it is an action against the university. He has no comment to make.”
Motimele did not respond to the Mail & Guardian’s faxed queries.