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UCT vice-chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng.
- A meeting of the UCT council exco to appoint an independent
panel collapsed on Monday. - The panel, led by a retired judge, will investigate
charges against the vice-chancellor and council chair. - UCT staff called this a “defining moment in
the history of UCT”.
The governance crisis at the University of Cape
Town (UCT) has deepened after a meeting of the council’s executive committee
(exco) to choose a retired judge and panel to lead an independent investigation
collapsed.
News24 has learnt that a meeting on Monday of eight
council members, including deputy chair Pheladi Gwangwa, was
“disastrous” after they could not agree on a process to be followed
for the appointment of a panel to investigate the vice-chancellor, Professor
Mamokgethi Phakeng, and council chair Babalwa Ngonyama.
Council exco was mandated to give substance to a
council decision last weekend to proceed with an investigation into the two.
A new special council meeting will now have to be
called to finalise the process.
The investigation centres on conflicting reasons
for the early departure of Associate Professor Lis Lange, deputy
vice-chancellor for teaching and learning.
Ngonyama told the UCT Senate that Lange resigned
for personal reasons, while Lange says in a letter she was forced out after
Phakeng, through Ngonyama, made it clear she didn’t want her to continue in the
role.
The Academic Union, a body representing UCT
employees, has called this “a defining moment in the history of UCT”
in its latest legal letter to council, warning that the investigation
“must be handled with utmost rigour, conscientiousness and
objectivity”.
University’s character ‘at stake’
“The allegations against the vice-chancellor
and chair of council are of the most serious kind. The reputation and character
of the university are at stake,” the union has warned.
At the heart of Monday’s failed meeting of the
council exco was Gwangwa’s continued refusal to recuse herself from the
process, after being accused by certain council members and the Academic Union
of having a conflict of interest.
As deputy council chair, Gwangwa chairs the
university’s human resources and remunerations committees and would have been
involved in negotiating Lange’s exit. This, according to the union, means she
is “obviously conflicted”.
In a lawyers’ letter from the Academic Union to
council on Monday, the union complained that Gwangwa, seen as an ally of
Phakeng, was “apparently attempting to have a significant say in choosing
the five members of the independent investigative panel and to determine other
arrangements in this regard, in circumstances where she has, and is reasonably
perceived to have, a vested interest in the outcome”.
The letter continued:
It is important in the interest of good governance and in compliance with her ethical and legal obligations for her to step away from any further involvement.
The union goes as far as asking council to
discipline Gwangwa for her conduct and ensure that she is no longer involved in
any matters relating to the independent investigation.
The union is unhappy that council exco was tasked
with appointing the independent panel and has called on council as a whole to
appoint a retired judge and four other panellists to conduct the probe.
Scheduled meeting
“Council has also not sent out a notification
about how the nominations to this panel will occur, including whether members
of the wider university community and other governance structures may nominate
members for consideration by council.”
News24 understands the council exco, who attended
Monday’s meeting, were made up of Gwangwa, Dianna Yach, Professor Ntobeko
Ntusi, Zama Khanyile, Sheila Barsel, Kumkani Goqoza and two additional council
members, Dr Shuaib Manjra and Professor Lwazi Lushaba.
At the last council meeting, Manjra, from the
university’s school of public health, proposed a motion for an independent investigation,
and Lushaba, a political science lecturer who was reprimanded in 2019 for
eating ballot papers in a dean’s election, punted an internal investigation.
Manjra’s motion was overwhelmingly supported.
The UCT Senate is scheduled to meet on Wednesday.
UCT’s spokesperson Elijah Moholola said he was
attending an official university event on Tuesday night and would discuss the
Academic Union’s letter with university management.
The university’s comment will be added once
received.
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