MPs slam Fort Hare management over ‘collapsing governance’

On Tuesday, 21 October, the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education conducted an oversight visit at the University of Fort Hare, after violent protests at the university this month caused damage estimated at R300-million.

Read more: University of Fort Hare campuses close amid arson and protests as students call for VC’s resignation 

The committee said there was “collapsing governance” at the institution, after it was revealed that the university’s council never consulted the Institutional Forum (IF) about extending the vice-chancellor, Prof Sakhela Buhlungu’s contract, the university’s management never released the budget of the SRC, and there was a crisis at the student residences.

The committee grilled the university’s council over the extension of Buhlungu’s contract, knowing that he would reach the retirement age of 65 while in office.

The interim deputy chairperson of the council, Judy Favish, said: “He was due to turn 65 within that second five-year period, around which consultation had already happened. We had to look at the provisions in the post-retirement policy, and our understanding at the time was that the wording in the post-retirement policy is that generally contracts are not more than a year.

“But ‘generally not more’ doesn’t mean you are prohibited from having a contract of longer than 12 months, so for the vice-chancellor to complete his full second term, the resolution was that the appointment should include a 16-month extension to take the vice-chancellor to the end of his five-year term.”

Read more: Fort Hare vice-chancellor says violent campus protests were ‘sponsored’

She added, “What the council discussed in its meeting a week ago was that there are concerns about whether the process we followed was legal; hence … we are getting an independent legal opinion on whether what happened was legally valid.”

The chairperson of the committee, MP Tebogo Letsie (ANC), argued that the council chose to interpret the policy in its own way.

He asked why the council had not consulted the university’s Institutional Forum (IF) when they extended the contract, and said the protests could have been avoided had the council and management engaged with the IF and students on the issue.

Read more: Fort Hare students fear for their future after classes at university are suspended

SRC crisis 

The Student Representative Council’s (SRC’s) former secretary-general, Odwa Msaro, and its acting president, Asonele Magwaxaza, told the committee that there was no SRC election this year and that the university management appointed an interim SRC without consulting students.

Msaro said the SRC “had no budget from the beginning of the year. We raised that to the office of the student developer [and were] promised that the budget is being allocated. After some time, it was around March … he said that the budget was misallocated.”

The committee’s deputy chair, MP Mnqobi Msezane (MK), questioned the acting dean of students, Professor Priscilla Monyai, on the suspension of the SRC president, Lwazi Khalakhala, and its deputy president, Luzuko Mnase. Monyai admitted the university management had been wrong not to consult with the SRC when they replaced the two.

Accommodation crisis 

The committee also inspected student residences at the university campus in Dikeni (formerly called Alice). Letsie said there was a crisis at the residences. He said they found that there were serious plumbing problems, geysers and stoves were not working, students were using plastic basins to wash themselves, walls were cracked, and windows were broken.

The university’s chief financial officer, Charles Matumba, said R40.5-million was spent on maintaining residences in the 2024 financial year.

“We have not seen [any sign of] the R40-million [being spent] there,” said Letsie.

During the meeting, it was revealed that records of past students and exam papers for 2025 were destroyed when the administration building was set alight during the protests, and the university’s newly built clinic was gutted.

The university said it had made plans to ensure that academics return and that students’ exams might be postponed until early December. DM