THE appointment of the Independent Assessor, Professor Themba Mosia, to investigate the state of UNISA following the Ministerial Task Team Report in 2021 was widely hailed as an opportunity to make an objective assessment of the university, the challenges it faces, and the changes it needs to make to preserve the integrity of its academic programme, quality assurance, and financial sustainability. Nothing could be more disappointing than this report, writes Mametlwe Sebei …
The Independent Assessor’s Report failed to answer the fundamental question: In what direction is the university travelling under the new Vice Chancellor (VC), Professor Puleng LenkaBula?
The failure of the report to deliver on these expectations comes down to the unethical conduct of the assessor, Mosia, for failing to disclose the conflict of his interests in Unisa and thereby using the investigation to cloud and confuse issues and society instead of clarifying them.
While the report does shed light on many of the challenges the university faces, it is blatantly dishonest about the direction of the university’s movement to answer the question: Is the situation worsening or improving at the university under the new leadership?
And consequently, it has aided, instead of undermining, the forces that want to roll back the heroic and courageous efforts of the executive management under the leadership of the recently appointed LenkaBula to dismantle corrupt networks that captured the supply chain management systems of the university, compromising its financial viability, academic programme, and quality assurances.
The conclusions of the report must therefore be rejected and set aside, and the university must be supported in its efforts to uproot corruption and improve its quests for knowledge production and reproduction, for which we desperately need billions of rand. The new management has saved the university since the takeover by the new VC.
Assessment of the University
Whereas Unisa certainly has major challenges in governance and administration, the hopeless picture and narrative painted by the assessor are false and calculated to advance the agenda of those seeking regime change. This agenda is part of the fightback by the corrupt networks, which, unfortunately, captured the university for a very long period and created the dire state described by the report.
From the reading of the report, the following is clear:
⦁ The report is ahistorical, undialectical, and lacks the scientific, methodical, and analytical rigour expected of institutional assessments.
⦁ The report slanders and blames most of the problems at Unisa on the new VC and principal, despite their being new at the helm of the university. Above all, evidence suggests that LenkaBula has been trying her best to improve the academic project and correct some of the legacies left by her predecessors. For instance, in the College of Law – for which the entire section of the report is devoted, and where this author is located – there were changes in the leadership of the departments and requirements for various posts. Heads of departments without doctorates were replaced; lecturers were also pushed and supported to get doctorates; and markers without master’s degrees were terminated. None of this gets discussed, save for a nonsensical and unsubstantiated remark that the appointment of a full professor in the school of criminal justice as the dean of the college suggests that the college doesn’t take qualifications seriously.
⦁ The report is not balanced. It is blatantly biassed and smacks of an ulterior motive. The agenda that has been on the cards for more than two years is to remove LenkaBula. The only good thing the report says about Unisa is that it is financially viable and sustainable. Even here, it treats this in passing and says absolutely nothing of the terminations of corrupt tenders that saved the university hundreds of millions of rand and how this accounts for fractious relations between the VC and those who benefited from this corruption.
⦁ The report rubbishes the steady improvements in Unisa’s national and global rankings, the innovative research outputs that put Unisa in the 8th position in South Africa, and the increasing number of NRF-rated researchers.
⦁ The report says nothing about the most backward institutional cultures that have been perpetrated by corrupt elements in the university, thereby weakening the gains of workers, students, and the public that has legitimate interests in the success of Unisa.
⦁ The report recommends the violation of a sacrosanct principle and policy of institutional autonomy. As workers, students, and members of society, we ought to reject the idea that members of the National Executive can hire and fire VCs.
⦁ The report is flawed on many grounds, including methodology and the law.
Mosia conflicted, biassed, and unethical
It is also public knowledge that the assessor has a relationship with the registrar of Unisa from the days when he (the assessor) was the administrator at TUT. As it is clear from the report, Registrar Professor Steward Mothata, who was suspended yesterday, is a major protagonist in the internal fights with VC LenkaBula. He is central to the crisis in the executive management of the university and was also responsible for procurements, including highly inflated prices at the VC’s house.
Mosia appointed him to his position at TUT, where he was. This is obvious from this 2014 Press Reader’s report on TUT, titled “TUT’s top dogs in snarling fight”. The report made this and the fact that they are personally close very clear. In a paragraph dealing with Mosia’s interventions at TUT, it states: “This is when TUT administrator Professor Themba Mosia intervened at Mothata’s request. Mosia tried to quash the row at a mediation meeting last September. In his report, Mosia commented: ‘I expressed my disappointment (at the meeting) that the team I put together could not transcend petty squabbles and rise above matters in the best interests of the institution’.”
This registrar became infamous for attacking the then female VC of Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), Professor Nthabiseng Ogude, in an unjustified misogynistic war, and we are seeing similar moves against LenkaBula at Unisa too. It is clear from the current report that Mosia is intervening at Unisa at the behest of Mothata, as he did at TUT, where Ogude was left with no choice but to resign under his relentless attacks. The fact that the report says absolutely nothing about the fact that the registrar was the VC responsible for refurbishments and procurements at the Unisa VC’s house and did nothing to investigate an obvious inflation of prices, despite repeated protestations of the VC, is telling.
Instead, the report makes an unsubstantiated finding about the VC’s involvement in the refurbishments at the house. It fails to clarify the nature of her involvement. Most importantly, it makes no mention of a well-documented trail of VC’s protests against these brazen acts of looting in relation to procurements for refurbishments.
Clearly, this is calculated to cast aspersions on the VC while absolving the person who was responsible for procurement, Mothata. That Mosia omitted all of these on his report on the spending on the house, and the fact that we had a registrar that was charged with sexual harassment and abuse of power, is not only a bad method in science. It is also telling where his loyalty lies.
No proof LenkaBula acted unethically
It is not the contention of this piece that LenkaBula is perfect and must not account for any wrongs or weaknesses. Politically, I take issue with the fact that the highly paid university VC has a house and a special car provided by the university. This is particularly problematic for the university, which fails to meet legitimate demands for wage increases from trade unions representing poorly paid workers, including cleaners, security guards, et al, and student movements fighting fee increases and for more student support.
VC must be supported in the struggle against tenderpreneurs
However, these are policies of the university that preceded her, and in any event, they have no bearing on the current attacks against her. She is under attack because she has been rooting out corrupt activities and elements at Unisa, and the old networks feel threatened.
Among others, LenkaBula pioneered the laptop scheme and saved the university more than R400 million. This has angered tenderpreneurs. But many academics and staff are happy, and the academic project was protected by a timely provision of tools of the trade – a laptop being central and basic in the teaching, learning, research, and engaged scholarship programmes of Unisa.
We also know that she has raised questions about the fleet tender and refused to engage courier services for long-term contracts in a context where the university strategy is moving away from snail mail to digital platforms and provisioning.
Overall, the financial reserves of the university have now increased by R5 billion, according to the assessor’s report, and by about R7bn according to other sources. These achievements are not insignificant feats in the context of a university that is poorly resourced and under the grip of corrupt tenderpreneurship interests and petty opportunism.
That official residence story is a hoax. We know that the Registrar was acting Vice-Principal for Estates and Operations during the renovations, and an external report commissioned at the insistence of the VC reveals that there was inflation of prices in excess of R400 000. Mosia cannot be allowed to fudge where responsibility lies on this matter. Those responsible for procurement must explain who benefited from inflation.
Executive Management must account in a fair process that is transparent and credible to many working-class people and youth whose futures are at stake at the Unisa. To this end, I would strongly urge that the university avail itself of an independent inquiry of the working-class movements, including national trade unions, federations, and student movements, in order to make an independent class and political determination of the issues and challenges involved as well as the changes that need to be made.
The “sniper” that is the assessor must not be allowed to disrupt the disruptor, LenkaBula. If Professor Sakhele Buhlungu at the University of Fort Hare is protected and given space to fight dark forces in Alice, then LenkaBula must also be accorded the same protection and space.
LenkaBula and those who lead Unisa honestly and with integrity deserve support in their quests to transform the university. We can see the hypocrisy and double standards of the former VCs as well. These include Professor Nyameko Pityana, who was responsible for overturning the sale of the VC’s house at the centre of the current scandal. His decision to retrieve the house from the sale cost the university much more financially and in scandal than anything currently happening.
Workers, students and communities must step forward
In the final analysis, the tasks of transforming Uinsa lie with the workers, academic staff, and students taking centre stage, including the delegation of people with integrity to the council and senate of the university. Public representatives must also truly represent the working-class communities, not politicians tied to tenderpreneurship and big corporate interests seeking profit from knowledge reproduction and research in the universities.
To this end, the rank-and-file workers, academics, and students must rise to rid themselves of corrupt and careerist opportunists at the top of their movements. It cannot be right that Nehawu is effectively challenging the ending of laptop tenders when the trade union movement has an established position on outsourcing, tendering, and corruption associated with them. The huge amounts of benefits for SRC members border on patronage and effectively subvert political militancy and activism, for which we need more and no less, contrary to Mosia’s report.
National structures of the trade union and student movements have the responsibility to also intervene in this situation. Unisa enrols one-third of students in higher education and produces half of the country’s teachers. Its collapse will be more disastrous for the country and society than that of SAA and only comparable to the current Eskom crisis.
Ultimately, it is only the democratic control and management of the university by its academics, workers, students, and communities that will ensure that the university is truly in the service of the students and society. To do this, we need to rid the university of all corrupt, tenderpreneurial interests that are subverting the financial and academic systems of the university for private profiteering.
- Mametlwe Sebei is a lecturer in professional ethics at Unisa. He writes in his personal capacity. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of IOL or the Sunday Independent.
