University of KwaZulu-Natal acting deputy vice-chancellor Pumela Msweli-Mbanga has claimed that she was victimised after rebutting sexual advances by senior colleagues, and suggested that this lay behind problems she encountered in advancing her career at UKZN.
The allegations are contained in Msweli-Mbanga’s complaint to the UKZN council in November, which the Mail & Guardian has seen. In this, she claims she was sexually harassed by vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba and council chairperson Vincent Maphai.
The council announced this week that both men were stepping aside from their positions pending an investigation into the charges.
Maphai has described her allegations as ”malicious”, while Makgoba has said they were linked to an investigation into the controversial awarding of a degree that Msweli-Mbanga, as dean of management studies, co-supervised.
The recipient of the disputed MCom degree was the university’s chief finance officer, Kanthan Pillay.
On Friday last week, Maphai announced that a three-member committee, led by deputy vice-chancellor Ahmed Bawa, had found that the process relating to the production of Pillay’s dissertation, his registration as a student, and the examination and award of his degree was characterised by ”a series of very serious lapses of generally accepted procedure at all levels”.
In addition, a senate committee subsequently decided that ”the entire process … was fatally flawed. It was entirely irregular from beginning to end,” Makgoba told the university on Monday.
Msweli-Mbanga’s letter to the council alleges that Makgoba last year made sexual advances to her which she rebuffed, and that she had asked Maphai to stop levelling ”sexual innuendoes” at her.
She further alleges that this led to her being ”victimised”, citing her unsuccessful applications for a full professorship and a permanent deputy vice-chancellorship.
She writes that ”during this harassment I felt as if both the vice-chancellor and the chair of council were in this together and were dealing with me like a trophy; such that they seem to believe that I would succumb to one of them. This I thought was [a] sick game played by men in high office.”
On Monday the council decided to ask the Judge President of KwaZulu-Natal, Vuka Tshabalala, to advise on who should chair the tribunal investigating Msweli-Mbanga’s allegations. Its other two members would be former CCMA head Thandi Orleyn, and Christina Murray, University of Cape Town law professor.
The tribunal will also investigate whether there were irregularities around the awarding of Pillay’s degree.
The M&G has copies of reports written in April by the two external examiners of Pillay’s dissertation. One says the work ”is not yet in a format that is acceptable for the candidate to be allowed to graduate. Once it is corrected and revised to the satisfaction of the supervisor and/or head of school, it will be acceptable …”
The other examiner wrote: ”I am unable to recommend that this thesis should be accepted, even after all editorial and other corrections have been made. In my opinion, it cannot be rectified.”
On Monday, Makgoba announced that the senate committee had agreed that Pillay’s degree should be nullified, and ”all those implicated” in the award should face a disciplinary inquiry.
Hours later, the council in effect overturned the committee’s findings and Makgoba’s announcement by launching its new investigation.
Maphai’s statement last Friday presented a chronology of events that led Makgoba to institute the inquiry into Pillay’s degree. Maphai referred cryptically to the resignation on November 2 of ”one of the key figures in this matter”.
He also said that last week ”one of those implicated” in the degree controversy had ”levelled certain allegations” against himself and Makgoba questioning their integrity. He said both men denied the allegations ”which they regard as malicious”.
By the time of the council’s Monday meeting, Msweli-Mbanga had been widely identified in the media and university circles as both the accuser and the person who had resigned.
The Daily News reported on Tuesday that Makgoba ”believed that the entire basis of Msweli-Mbanga’s claims hinged on the investigation” into the awarding of Pillay’s degree.
He subsequently confirmed to the M&G that his remarks to The Daily News were accurately reported, adding that no university ”can afford to have corrupt degrees. That’s what we need to focus on — the integrity of the institution. No one should divert attention from that.”
Msweli-Mbanga’s written grievance to the council alleges there is ”a serious question of whether the Bawa investigation was instituted to discredit and to prejudice me in the selection process” for the deputy vice-chancellorship.
She also wrote that the way in which Makgoba ”has presented the untested findings of the Bawa report to the university community and the slanderous manner that he has portrayed me together with the unwarranted innuendoes generated by his communications have seriously damaged my integrity with the faculty, the institution and academic institutions in general”.
Msweli-Mbanga alleges that Makgoba ”and others have undertaken a course of events to ensure that not only is my career at the University of KwaZulu-Natal as dean and [deputy vice-chancellor] ruined, but they have also attempted to damage my good name and academic record with my prospective future employer at the University of Johannesburg, where I have been offered the position of [deputy vice-chancellor]”.
University of Johannesburg spokesperson Sonia Cronje confirmed that Msweli-Mbanga had been offered this post, but that when the university became aware of ”allegations of possible misconduct” against her at UKZN, it ”decided to place her appointment on hold until such time as a final outcome was reached” on the allegations.
The UKZN council also decided on Monday to agree to Msweli-Mbanga’s request that her resignation be revoked.
Msweli-Mbanga and Pillay did not respond to two messages left with each of their secretaries this week.
Maphai and Makgoba declined to comment on the details of Msweli-Mbanga’s written grievance, mererly referring the M&G to Maphai’s Friday statement.