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UCT council chairperson Babalwa Ngonyama has called for an independent investigation into the governance crisis at the university.
This comes after a meeting of the University Senate in late September, a Special Council meeting on Thursday and a statement issued on Friday by concerned members of the UCT Council.
In their statement, the 13 members of council said they were distancing themselves from a “flawed” and irregular process at a special meeting where a motion into an independent investigation by a retired judge was blocked.
However, in a meda statement released on Saturday evening, Ngonyama said she would ask the council to reconsider its decision.
The university has been in the spotlight over the past two weeks over claims that Ngonyama and the campus’ vice-chancellor professor Mamokgethi Phakeng misrepresented the reasons why UCT’s deputy vice-chancellor professor Lis Lang left the institution.
Lang departed from the university in March.
Lange has been described by academic commentator Jonathan Jansen as “one of the best deputy vice-chancellors this country has ever had”.
Her departure was widely felt to be a major loss to UCT.
Earlier this month, the council resolved to launch an internal probe into the matter. However, Ngonyama has since called for an external investigation led by a retired judge.
UCT spokesperson Elijah Moholola said: “There will be an ordinary sitting of council on Saturday (15 October) that has always been scheduled as a normal meeting. In that meeting, we expect the chair council will officially table this call, then council will deliberate on it and apply their minds and decide whether they want to resolve [and] adopt that as a formal resolution of council.”
Moholola said the investigating panel’s terms of reference must still be formulated.
“First, we have to go through the council meeting and council agreeing to head this call by the chair to go the independent route,” said Moholola.
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