OWEN KOCK
He never lost any sleep over the allegations levelled at him and the institution, Prof. Thandwa Mthembu, rector of the once troubled Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein said, after no evidence was found at the conclusion of an investigation into alleged mal-administration and financial mismanagement, among others at the institution.
“Well, I feel vindicated. All along I had no fear; I had no worries as I was on the side of truth. I knew we have a very robust system of governance in this country where the judiciary is independent and I knew if things had to go to that level, I would be vindicated,” a relieved Mthembu told Courant at a lavish breakfast at the Bloemfontein Campus of CUT last week.
The CUT gave feedback on an investigation into an anonymous letter sent to the minister of higher education and training, Blade Nzimande. In the letter allegations of mal-administration, financial mismanagement, victimisation of staff and a lack of governance were levelled against CUT management.
It now seems that it’s all sunshine and roses at the once troubled institution of higher learning in the City of Roses no less.
Chairman of the CUT board Dr. Sylvan Seane says after almost two-and-a-half years, the university has dealt with the domino effect of the letter. He says a commission lead by advocate JP de Bruyn was established after KPMG internal auditors failed to ascertain the validity of the allegations.
“Both the Department of Higher Education and Training and ourselves, CUT’s leadership, can now focus on our mutual and shared purpose of providing excellent education to our students.
“We have put the 2012 events behind us and focus our attention on building a stringer foundation for a realisation of CUT’s 2020 vision,” Seane added.
Meanwhile, Mthembu also spoke out on what was quoted in the letter as the questionable relationship between himself and Prof. Tavlin Schultz, the then Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Institutional Planning, Partnerships and Communications, which left the University at the beginning of the 2013 academic year.
“Immediately they think we are involved in some corruption. But again, not a single thing was ever put on the table, because when you see newspaper reports which talks about corruption, you get a project in which people are supposed to have been corrupt or you get figures of money that they’ve been exchanging.
“Between me and Prof. Schultz or anybody else, I have never been involved in any such stuff. Schultz was at one stage an executive director in my office so I worked much closer with him than any of the executives, so maybe because of that it was thought there were things that we did together, I don’t know,” Mthembu added.
And as far as staff morale is concerned, at level what does Mthembu think they are?
“I think the morale of the staff has been very buoyant all along, really, because as Advocate JP de Bruyn said, we don’t know how many of the staff members who were disgruntled, how many they were and it could have been five people who wrote the letter.
“Now you cannot make a conclusion out of that (letter written) whether the rest of the staff members of CUT were disgruntled, unhappy. But from the products that we have had from our staff members and students, it looks like we have so many enthusiastic and motivated people,” Mthembu said.
He expressed the hope they can now fully focus on what their core business is, education.
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