Two powerful interest groups at the University of Durban-Westville (UDW) say they are determined that controversial vice-chancellor Saths Cooper should be ousted. But the groups are also at war with each other as they manoeuvre for ascendancy in the run-up to the university’s high-profile merger with the University of Natal.
One group consists of senior staffers who supported Cooper’s candidacy. The other comprises equally senior staffers who opposed any new appointment, with the merger looming, and who are determined that the formerly pro-Cooper camp ”should not be projected as heroes” now that they have turned against Cooper, a senior staffer says.
Last week Cooper suspended two of his formerly staunch supporters, Professor Kanthan Pillay, executive director of finance, and anthropologist Professor Anand Singh, president of the Academic Staff Association. The Mail & Guardian was unable to ascertain the precise nature of the charges against them.
High-level speculation is that the suspensions were aimed at silencing the two in crucial tests Cooper faced in the senate this week and when the council meets on Friday (August 22).
An emergency council meeting was held three weeks ago purportedly to address ”matters of governance”. The M&G has seen a document detailing charges that form the basis of the call for the meeting. The document specifies various allegedly irregular senior appointments, questionable expenditures and Cooper’s remuneration package (the subject of increasingly pressured inquiry within UDW’s highest levels).
Singh was one of five councillors who wrote to council chairperson Dr Namane Magau calling for the emergency meeting.
But when the emergency meeting was held, the phrase ”matters of governance” was absent from the agenda, well-placed UDW representatives say. Asked about this omission, Magau said: ”Issues that were raised in the brief received by council were discussed in the special council meeting. A key focus was to review the financial report for the past year and to deliberate on the action … by Professor [Mapule] Ramashala … I am mindful of not compromising the integrity of council and will therefore not go into details on the matter.”
Ramashala, Cooper’s predecessor, brought a R3-million defamation suit against Cooper and the council in June for remarks Cooper had made on e.tv news the month before. The remarks concerned a loan and investment deal UDW concluded shortly after Ramashala assumed office in 1998.
Medi Mokuena, Ramashala’s attorney, said this week that the former vice-chancellor is persisting in her action against both the council and Cooper.
The council will meet again on Friday, this time with ”matters of governance” firmly on the agenda, the M&G has been told.
In a further eruption, a special senate meeting on Wednesday discussed a range of issues centred on Cooper’s leadership, including the suspensions of Pillay and Singh, Rama-shala’s action, the threatened legal action against former dean of students Professor Pitika Ntuli and the reasons for his sudden departure, and Cooper’s remuneration package.
”The senators couldn’t argue [with Cooper],” a staffer present at the meeting said. ”They lacked the information to do so.”
Several academics within UDW and elsewhere raised eyebrows when Cooper, a practising psychologist, was appointed, saying he has no track record in university management. He was formerly a member of UDW’s council.
”When we raised questions about changing UDW’s leadership on the eve of the merger, the supporters of Cooper rubbished us as Ramashala’s boys,” said UDW academic Sello Mokoena, chairperson of the African Forum, which represents all African staff at UDW. ”Now they are calling on the very people they were maligning to assist them to eject Saths.”
”Whatever the charges [against me] are, I don’t believe they warrant suspension,” Pillay told the M&G. ”I am sure the truth will prevail.”
Singh commented that it is about ”governance and fiduciary responsibility that I have been raising [questions and] that has made many managers feel rather uncomfortable”.
A senior staffer commented that Cooper ”is now interfering with a national process … With Cooper off the scene we would have the merger buttoned up in two weeks. Cooper has made an attempt to keep people with contrary voices off the campus.”
A pall of litigation is now thick- ening the conflict-ridden turmoil at the highest levels of the deeply divided university. Ntuli, one of many senior appointments made since Cooper assumed office in January, now faces a R15-million defamation suit.
This follows remarks he made after his shock resignation in June. At the time, he told the M&G, and several other newspapers, that his appointment was ”tokenist”. The M&G understands that this is the nub of the defamation action with which attorneys acting for UDW have threatened him.
The suit Ntuli faces breaks down as R9-million in damages against UDW and R6-million for alleged defamation of Cooper. But prominent UDW representatives say the council has never approved the action against Ntuli. Magau told the M&G this week the council has not brought the action and ”the matter at this stage is not recognised by council”.
Executive director Dasarath Chetty responded to the M&G’s questions this week to Cooper.
”Over the past five months we have received numerous requests for information in the form of long lists of questions from the Mail & Guardian. On each occasion the University responded in detail to the issues raised,” he said.
”The Mail & Guardian of the 27th June and the 1st July carried stories of UDW that presents both the University and the Vice-Chancellor in an extremely negative light. Given that detailed information has been supplied in the past by the University in an attempt to respond to the allegations you raised, and given that this information has not been used by the Mail & Guardian in its one-sided reporting, we believe that we will once again not be given a fair hearing should we respond in detail …
”Due process is being followed in regard to the suspensions of Professors Pillay and Singh. So that neither the University nor the said individuals may be prejudiced in any way, details of the action under way may not be revealed at this stage.”