Chippy Shaik has for four years laid claim to a bogus doctorate that he and a cabal of internationally acclaimed South African professors fraudulently concocted, the Sunday Times reported.
An extensive investigation by the newspaper found that Shaik’s 2003 PhD in mechanical engineering from the then-University of Natal (UKZN) was plagiarised. More than two-thirds was regurgitated from journal papers of other authors without citation or acknowledgement.
This exposé comes on the eve of a petition by his brother, Schabir — who has been convicted of fraud — to the Constitutional Court (Concourt) to get out of jail early.
Chippy now risks his doctorate being revoked, while the academics who supervised his thesis — Professor Viktor Verijenko, head of the school of mechanical engineering at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and his colleague, Professor Sarp Adali — face being fired.
In a confidential communiqué dated May 16 and sent to the university senate on Friday, acting vice-chancellor Professor Isobel Konyn said she regretted that the integrity of a UKZN degree had again been called into question.
”This was brought to our attention by an outside agency. The university has conducted its own investigations and the allegations have foundation. An investigation of the matter has been instituted within the university and senators will be kept informed.”
His brother, Yunis, on Sunday said that Chippy was a ”significant contributor” to the journal article he is alleged to have plagiarised in his thesis.
”[He] is a co-author and significant contributor of the very journal article that he is said to have plagiarised,” wrote Yunis in a statement, in his brother’s defence.
”The article is mentioned in the bibliography. More importantly, his co-authors deny the allegation of plagiarism and contend that he was entitled to make use of the work as a co-author,” he added.
Earlier, Yunis described the plagiarism claim as ”wild”, ”fanciful” and an attempt to malign the Shaik brothers on the eve of the Concourt case.
UKZN vice-chancellor and principal Professor Malegapuru Mokgaba said he was ”outraged” and that the matter would be cleared up to protect the reputation of the university’s many committed academics.
Verijenko said only those who worked on Shaik’s thesis were able to assess its quality and authenticity.
‘Due consideration’
In April it was reported that the Public Protector will not investigate Chippy over arms-deal bribery allegations.
”Advocate Lawrence Mushwana concluded that he could not, at this stage, proceed with an investigation as the ‘allegation’ referred to criminal conduct that German authorities were investigating,” said his spokesperson, Charles Phahlane.
This followed ”due consideration” of a request to do so by the Democratic Alliance arms-deal spokesperson Eddie Trent.
Mushwana said the Public Protector did not have powers to conduct criminal investigations and to institute prosecutions.
”It is therefore for the National Prosecuting Authority to decide whether the allegations made by Der Spiegel warrant any further investigation in South Africa at this time.”
According to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, Shaik was allegedly paid a $3-million (about R21-million) bribe by one of the arms-deal bidding companies.
On February 5 the DA requested that allegations relating to Chippy be investigated.
A March 15 2007 meeting between the Public Protector, the National Prosecuting Authority and Auditor General Terence Nombembe concluded that none of the requests for investigation they had received required their ”joint consideration”.
”They agreed that each institution would deal with issues that have been raised based on their own mandates. This means that the three agencies will not reconstitute a joint investigation team as was structured in the 2001 probe.” — Sapa