Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng was ecstatic when the University of Cape Town (UCT) retained its top spot on the continent. And it climbed 23 places globally, from 183rd last year to 160th, according to the World University Rankings published by Times Higher Education magazine last month.
South Africans joined the vice-chancellor and the rest of the UCT community in lauding this remarkable achievement.
Phakeng pointed out in UCT’s “Year in Review 2021” report, released last month, that UCT graduates remain among the world’s most employable, according to the Quacquarelli Symonds Graduate Employability Rankings.
Sadly, these achievements are being overshadowed by the governance crisis at the institution and the allegations of misconduct against Phakeng and the chair of the council, Babalwa Ngonyama.
Cracks started appearing in the council after an allegation surfaced that Ngonyama and Phakeng had lied to the senate about the reasons for the departure of associate professor Lis Lange, the deputy VC for teaching and learning.
Ngonyama is said to have told the senate, a highly respected body, that Lange left for personal reasons, a claim Lange has denied.
At a senate meeting on September 30, a letter by Lange giving her version of events was submitted. It was also reportedly resolved that 10 members would look into the conduct of Ngonyama and Phakeng relating to an increase in the number of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) signed by departing staff.
Lange indicated in her letter that as early as January 3 Ngonyama had told her that her tenure could not go beyond this year because the relationship between herself and Phakeng had broken down.
Despite Lange informing Ngonyama that she intended to stand for a second term, she indicated that “no council would appoint a DVC [deputy vice-chancellor] against the vice-chancellor’s wishes, no matter how much support the DVC in question might have”.
However, Ngonyama’s official version was that during the meeting about the possibility of Phakeng’s reappointment as VC, Lange “became abrasive, aggressive and abusive, making clear her own ambition to succeed Phakeng”.
Ngonyama is accused of prevaricating for months over the convening of a special council meeting to discuss the resignations of Lange, who left in May, and other senior staff.
This is laid bare in leaked documents between herself and some council members.
The chair has assumed the role of gatekeeper, feeding selective information to council members, and withholding crucial information
— Shuaib Manjra, council member,
One of the leaked documents is a four-page letter by Shuaib Manjra, a council member, to the 30-member council on September 11.
He said he felt compelled to write directly to the council “because the chair has assumed the role of gatekeeper, feeding selective information to council members, and withholding crucial information”.
“Even the deep fissures and fractures which currently characterise council should never compromise good governance and undermine democratic, consultative, co-operative, and deliberative decision-making, in the pursuit of a blinkered agenda.
“Council should be afforded the respect it deserves, as a corporate executive with powers, not as a personal club that expects displays of deferential servility; embraces only loyalists; while shunning, censoring, and silencing critical voices.”
Manjra declined to comment to the Sunday Times, but his observations offer a glimpse of the extent of the governance crisis at UCT.
A university’s council is the highest decision-making body and is meant to be responsible for good order and governance, according to the department of higher education. Some council members are ministerial appointees.
The words “deep fissures and fractures” conjure up a picture of a deeply divided council, an impression borne out by the special council meeting on October 6 that voted for an internal investigation to probe governance and procedural matters involving the senate meeting a week earlier.
The vote plunged the institution into even deeper crisis after 13 of the 30 council members openly voiced their dissent and labelled the meeting “irregular” and “flawed”.
A day after the much-publicised falling out among council members, Ngonyama made a sudden U-turn and called for an independent investigation led by a retired judge.
But there was still the small matter of rescinding the October 6 motion; this resulted in further chaos at a meeting on October 15 when the deputy chair of council, Pheladi Gwangwa, refused to recuse herself from the meeting.
She was the one who cast the deciding vote supporting the October 6 motion, which was tied after 14 members voted in favour and 14 against.
Ngonyama and Phakeng, to their credit, recused themselves from the October 15 meeting. Whether they did so only because of threats of legal action from lawyers acting for UCT’s Academics Union remains unclear.
The end result, however, was that a motion was passed for the establishment of an independent panel of five members to probe “the circumstances relating to Lange’s departure”.
During yet another stormy meeting this month the terms of reference of the panel, which includes three retired judges and will be chaired by one of them, were adopted.
Retired president of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) Lex Mpati, former Constitutional Court justice Sisi Khampepe and retired SCA judge Azhar Cachalia have reportedly been asked to sit on the panel. However, it is believed that the names of panellists are still being finalised.
They will investigate whether Phakeng and Ngonyama misled faculty boards, the senate or the council concerning Lange’s availability for a second term and the reasons she did not pursue it.
The panel’s scope includes investigating all matters related to executive relationships, including the number of, and reasons for, resignations within and beyond the executive, “with due consideration of reasons for this”.
Panel members will also speak to current or departed staff and/or members of the current or previous councils regardless of whether they have signed an NDA.
They have until December 31 to prepare a report recommending actions to be taken generally and if necessary against specific individuals.
At this juncture, it might be pertinent to ask if Phakeng is an innocent victim who is being unfairly targeted.
A report by UCT’s ombud, Zetu Makamandela-Mguqulwa, for the period July 2018 to June 2019 details 37 cases of alleged bullying of staff by Phakeng.
Makamandela-Mguqulwa wrote: “During this reporting period a number of work-related complaints came to me about professional interactions with the VC where people felt bullied, silenced, undermined, rebuked and/or treated unfairly. Their pain was visible.”
Phakeng, who has almost 294,000 Twitter followers, has put her foot in it on several occasions for posting insensitive tweets.
One of the most controversial recent tweets on her account read: “…she almost went the Mayosi route in 2020…” — a reference to the former dean of health sciences, professor Bongani Mayosi, who died by suicide in 2018.
The tweet drew a strong response from Mayosi’s sister, advocate Ncumisa Mayosi, who wrote that it “displays a total lack of empathy, compassion and, I dare say, emotional intelligence on your part”.
Phakeng blamed a nephew for writing the tweet.
Phakeng blamed a nephew for writing the tweet
A highly respected education expert says Phakeng, Ngonyama and Gwanga should be given their marching orders and the council should be reconstituted.
“This must be done on the basis of a very simple rule, which is that we will respect the institutional governance of the university as laid down in the statute and in the Higher Education Act.”
He said the trio “have proved themselves to be completely inept in the governance of a university”.
Professor Labby Ramrathan of the University of KwaZulu-Natal said no-one should be in a leadership position for more than a single term of office.
“Five years is sufficient to make strategic moves that strengthen university governance and it will also prevent ongoing governance issues.”
While the terms of reference indicate that the hearings will be held in camera, Phakeng told 702 last month she wants them to be livestreamed so that “everyone can watch when I am interrogated, because I think there’s a lot of mischief here”.
“I want the public to see what happens, to see whether some people are treated with kid gloves and are not asked certain questions.”
She and the senior leadership of the council would do well to come clean on all the alleged governance failures and violations of the university’s own rules. They owe it not only to UCT but to the country as a whole.
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