Academics take their battle against Unisa’s controversial leadership to the courts
Who is running Unisa, and in whose interests? Controversy over governance of the country’s largest university has again erupted, following the dismissal last week of vice-principal Professor Simon Maimela on charges of misconduct. And senior academic Dr McGlory Speckman’s ongoing high court action against the university raises questions about the highest levels of Unisa management, say academics at the troubled institution.
Controversial council chairperson McCaps Motimele and new vice-chancellor Dr Barney Pityana are again in the spotlight, with Unisa staff angrily questioning the grounds of Maimela’s dismissal. ”This is all about the authority of Motimele,” says one. ”Anyone who queries him pays the price. Is it right for the chairperson of council to destroy academic careers?”
Maimela’s attorney, Len Dekker, queries the roles of Motimele and Pityana in his client’s dismissal after 21 years’ service, suggesting that their chief purpose is to avoid the court action that Maimela launched in February seeking to have Pityana’s appointment as vice-chancellor declared invalid.
”We’re convinced that Unisa is uncomfortable with the legality of Pityana’s appointment and is using the charge of misconduct as a tool to get rid of Maimela’s court action.”
Speckman’s case arises from the council’s overthrow, allegedly at Motimele’s instigation, of his appointment as deputy dean of the theology faculty last year.
”This happened despite the fact that Dr Speckman is a black person with impeccable academic standing whose appointment was overwhelmingly recommended by a fully representative selection committee,” says Unisa’s Academic and Professional Staff Association (Apsa), which backs Speckman’s action seeking to have his appointment confirmed.
Last week the Pretoria High Court struck out Unisa’s answering affidavit for the second time since Speckman launched his action in October and, also for the second time, ordered Unisa to pay costs. In both cases Unisa’s lawyers failed to file answering papers properly, the court ruled.
Not for the first time since Motimele, who is a respondent in Speckman’s action, became chair-person of the council more than two years ago, the use of Unisa finances is being questioned. ”It’s a gratuitous waste of public funds,” says Nic Coetzee, general secretary of Apsa, ”and a continuation of the council’s delaying tactics. If how much the case is costing Unisa isn’t an issue for the council, there’s no incentive on its part to reach a conclusion.”
Misconduct charges against Mai-mela derive from his attempt last November to change the locks on the council offices and run Motimele off the campus. Acting vice-chancellor at the time, Maimela claimed that Motimele – who, unusually for a council chairperson, maintains a permanent suite of offices at Unisa – was using university property improperly and that his attempt to eject Motimele was aimed at protecting public monies.
Payment to Motimele and some other councillors for duties that councils at other tertiary institutions perform in the public interest for free received detailed government attention last year. The auditor general concluded that certain payments were ”excessive”, and recommended that these amounts be recovered.
Maimela also cited legal opinion that certain actions of the council were beyond its powers. A long-standing allegation against the Motimele council has been that it repeatedly interferes in, and performs, executive functions that are properly the responsibility of the senate.
Motimele retaliated the same day by dismissing Maimela as acting vice-chancellor and announcing to a stunned Unisa community that Pityana, who had been due to assume office in January, had done so the day before. Maimela’s subsequent refusal to accept Pityana’s appointment added insubordination to the charge of misconduct.
”But the real reason for his dismissal isn’t misconduct,” Dekker says, ”it’s his refusal to withdraw his high court case against Pityana’s appointment.” Maimela’s application argues that, as chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, Pityana could not resign from the commission without three months’ notice unless he had Parliament’s permission.
Pityana’s communications with Unisa on this matter are contradictory, Maimela’s application maintains. In an e-mail to Unisa staff in November, Pityana wrote that Parliament had released him to assume his Unisa post. But in a letter to Motimele, also in November, he said ”the Presidency” had given him leave of absence for December. This letter ”clearly shows that the matter had not been considered by Parliament” as required by law, Maimela’s application argues.
Defending himself against charges of misconduct, Maimela made certain concessions that satisfied Unisa’s disciplinary committee, but he reserved his rights to pursue his high court action, Dekker says. ”It was then Motimele and Pityana who said his reinstatement was conditional on his withdrawing his court action. We believe this is because they have no answer to the charges in Maimela’s application.
”You can’t discriminate against an employee for exercising his rights to challenge the legality of what his employers are doing,” Dekker says. ”It’s contrary to labour law and automatically constitutes unfair dismissal. We’ll challenge this in the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration and if necessary in the Labour Court.”
Pityana and Motimele declined to respond to the Mail & Guardian‘s faxed questions.