ANC delays Fort Hare briefing again
The University of Fort Hare’s (UFH) appearance before the Higher Education Portfolio Committee – which the DA requested earlier this month - has now been postponed for a second time. The meeting was supposed to take place on 23 September, but without any reason it has been moved again – with no new date provided.
The ANC is making themselves complicit in the serious challenges facing the university. This is unacceptable and cannot continue any longer – especially given the recent revelations that the UFH’s Registrar, Professor Mike Somniso, has allegedly planned to unleash the ANC’s uMkhonto weSizwe military veterans on DASO students at the university’s Alice campus.
The Chairperson of the Committee, Mrs Yvonne Phosa, must convene an urgent meeting of the Committee without any further delay, and summon the university management and Professor Somniso. It must also ensure that the forensic report conducted by private company, FastTrac – which outlines serious financial problems at the institution – be tabled before the committee.
This report found that the current financial situation is now so serious that the university could run out of money imminently. The problems at UFH pertain to allegations of bankruptcy, the fact that the university has a R100-million deficit and that the university has illegally used National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) money – intended to subsidise students from poor backgrounds - to pay staff salaries.
The Council itself has failed in its governance responsibility to identify and act to reverse the dire financial situation, while NSFAS students have been without meal allowances since the beginning of the year, effectively meaning they do not have the money to feed themselves.
Given these problems, combined with the threats of violence by university management, it is not unreasonable to call for the UFH to appear urgently before the Committee to account for what is being done to address the problems.
The problems at the UFH are now so serious that they are effecting the students’ ability to access the higher education that is key to their future success, ability to find jobs, to create a better future for themselves and to contribute to South Africa.
Issued by Yusuf Cassim, DA Shadow deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training, 28 September 2015
