Leading psychologists are enraged at the appointment of Saths Cooper, formerly the controversial vice-chancellor of the University of Durban-Westville (UDW), to the newly formed board of the psychologists’ council. This took place despite Cooper’s failure to be democratically elected, they say.
This week the Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, appointed Cooper as one of three “community representatives” on the Professional Board of Psychology of the Health Professions Council of South Africa. The board is one of 12 medical boards that make up the council, a statutory body set up by the Health Professions Act of 1974 to enhance the quality of health policy and coordinate and guide the professional boards.
Cooper’s appointment flies in the face of an election process in which 50 candidates were voted for by the profession during November last year, senior pyschologists told the Mail & Guardian this week. Cooper was placed 41st, having received the 10th-lowest number of votes — 116, whereas the top candidates received an average of 400 votes.
A senior member of the profession said: “We voted, presumably democratically, for the board — yet Cooper, who was 41st on the list, has been appointed a community representative.” He said the minister’s appointment was “disrespectful” to the profession as well as undemocratic: “The minister disregarded the democratic process and put Cooper on the board through the back door.”
Tshabalala-Msimang also ignored a cautionary letter sent to her on December 15 last year. Written by four senior members of the profession, it requested that the minister be “mindful of the fact that the profession of psychology has cast its vote and that to appoint to the board, as community representatives, members of the profession who were nominated for election but who were not successful in the elections would be in contradiction to the expressed desires of the profession”.
The letter said community representatives should be people who are not registered psychologists and who truly represent the community. Cooper’s appointment ignores both these recommendations, senior psychology professionals say.
“The votes indicate that the profession has no faith in Cooper’s governance,” said the senior psychologist. It is also unknown which community Cooper represents, and the minister has failed to specify this.
Divisions in the profession landed in court last year. The Society for the Industrial and Organisational Psychology of South Africa (Siopsa) had resisted attempts by the Psychological Society of South Africa (Psyssa) to swallow it, and eventually took the matter to the Johannesburg High Court.
Siopsa won its case against Psyssa in October, when Judge J Willis made a “punitive order … as a mark of disapproval of [Psyssa’s] conduct” in “raising numerous irrelevant issues”, “making scandalous, vexatious allegations against persons who deposed to the founding affidavit” of Siopsa, and “showing a serious breach of professional courtesy and ethics”.
Cooper’s CV at UDW says he helped create Psyssa in the early 1990s, was president in 1996, 1997 and 1998, and was elected Psyssa’s first fellow in September 2002.
The senior psychologist said the appointment was puzzling, too, in the light of the Khumalo report on mismanagement by Cooper and senior managers at UDW, commissioned by Minister of Education Kader Asmal late last year. The report recommmended that UDW immediately sever its ties with Cooper.
The Department of Health failed to respond to questions on the appointment. The M&G contacted Cooper, but his cellphone was turned off at the time Cooper requested the M&G to call back.