As the current saga enveloping the University of Cape Town shifts at bewildering speed, it is important to focus on the underlying issue: repeated attempts to cover up leadership failures at the university.
On Saturday, the chair of the university’s governing council, Babalwa Ngonyama, appeared to announce a U-turn, expressing support for an independent and external investigation of the current crisis. But what precisely is the crisis over — and what should be investigated?
The faction in the council led by the chair appears obsessed with what they see as an unprocedural revolt by the UCT Senate. The revolt in the Senate reflected its outrage at the apparent dishonesty of the vice-chancellor and the chair of the council with respect to the departure earlier this year of one of the deputy vice-chancellors. The chair of the council now appears to recognise that an external investigation should consider both procedures in the Senate and the immediate factors prompting the Senate’s outrage.
Underlying these issues, however, are more fundamental ones. The issues of leadership, transparency and accountability plague much of South African society today. The individuals wielding power — in the university as in the state — endeavour to keep any alleged misconduct out of sight. Covering up is commonplace.
It is imperative that any external investigation uncovers the toxic mess in the leadership of the university — and the council’s chronic failure to solve the problems or address their invidious consequences in the day-to-day operations of the university.
The origins of the crisis
The UCT council was aware of the looming problem even before the current vice-chancellor was appointed in 2018. When he motivated in Senate for the appointment of Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, the then chair of the council, Sipho Pityana, acknowledged that shortcomings in Phakeng’s leadership style had become evident in the short time that she had been one of UCT’s deputy vice-chancellors (DVCs).
Pityana told the Senate that Phakeng herself “had acknowledged that there were areas of her leadership style that could be improved upon and had undertaken to do so”. Reassured, the Senate supported the appointment.
Since 2018, the leaders of the council have made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to address the weaknesses in the new vice-chancellor’s leadership. They have also consistently sought to cover up the problems — and their own failures to solve them.
Between 2018 and 2020, the council never disclosed that it had appointed a life coach to guide the new vice-chancellor — or that this initiative had failed. The council did not disclose that the relationship between the chair of the council and the vice-chancellor had broken down. The council did not disclose that it had to appoint a special committee to try to repair the relationship.
The ombud steps in
As the leadership of the university became increasingly dysfunctional, many UCT staff turned to the university’s well-respected ombud, Zetu Makamandela-Mguqulwa.
In February 2020, in her annual report to the council, the ombud reported that she had received 37 work-related complaints about the vice-chancellor. The ombud reported that “people felt bullied, silenced, undermined, rebuked and/or treated unfairly”.
She observed that their “pain was visible”, that none had wanted her to approach the VC as they “feared retaliation” and that her “visitors came in different capacities, but all spoke about the same fear”.
According to the ombud’s report, people complained that the VC used “combative and violent” language and saw disagreements in terms of “winners and losers”.
The vice-chancellor’s response was, apparently, to try to prevent the ombud’s report from being discussed even within the council. The then chair of the council — despite his fractious relationship with the vice-chancellor — initially acceded, prompting the resignation of the deputy chair in protest against the cover-up.
After a delay, the council did discuss the ombud’s report. The council apparently resolved that its chair and new deputy chair should “engage” with the vice-chancellor and other senior executive officers regarding the vice-chancellor’s “leadership style and its impact on institutional governance” and the “tensions in the senior leadership team”.
The council was clearly aware already of the dire state of the vice-chancellor’s relationships with the other five senior leaders (the three DVCs, the chief operating officer and the registrar).
The chair and deputy chair reported back to the council that there was — in their words — an “authoritarian leadership style”, pervasive “mistrust”, “mindless insecurity” (ie, an “endless fear” of being “undermined” or “unseated”), “abrasive behaviour”, “poor interpersonal skills and an inability to build a cohesive team” and a “non-collegial culture”.
Their report to the council concluded that the vice-chancellor’s leadership relied excessively and unsustainably on coercion and that “this has been experienced as sometimes humiliating, demeaning, undermining, disrespectful and not good for the personal health of all those affected”. The executive was described as “dysfunctional”.
Neither the ombud’s report nor the chair of the council’s subsequent report was ever shared with or discussed in the Senate.
At the end of June, the council’s term of office ended. The former chair walked away. The new council elected a new chair, Babalwa Ngonyama.
The crisis becomes public
The mess within UCT’s leadership soon became public despite the council’s attempts to cover it up. First, the ombud published her report, which was soon covered in the media (as well as, the ombud later said, leading to yet more UCT staff complaining to the ombud about the vice-chancellor’s leadership style).
Then the explosive council documents were leaked to the media.
The new chair of the council, with the vice-chancellor, appeared determined to shut down any discussion. When the ombud publicly criticised the council for its tardiness in dealing with the allegations against the vice-chancellor, the new chair of the council apparently resolved to dispose of the ombud.
The chair of the council reportedly summoned the ombud over her alleged “misconduct”, with the apparent intention of suspending her. The ombud was not suspended, but did leave the university at the end of the year (and the end of her contract).
Two years later, the university is yet to appoint a full-time ombud.
In attacking the messenger rather than addressing the message, the UCT council continued its practice of covering up the dysfunctionality of the university’s leadership and its own failure to address this satisfactorily.
The departure of DVCs
The cover-up of the continuing university crisis was punctured by the resignation of DVCs and other senior executive officers.
UCT’s DVCs, like its vice-chancellor, are appointed for terms of five years. In February 2021, the vice-chancellor announced that the DVC for Transformation, Professor Loretta Feris, would not be seeking a second term when her term ended at the end of the year. Just one month later the vice-chancellor announced that the DVC would be stepping down with almost immediate effect (formally, taking sabbatical leave for the remainder of 2021).
While the vice-chancellor’s formal statement praised her DVC, it was soon widely rumoured that the DVC had left after one too many disputes with Mamokgethi Phakeng. It was also widely rumoured that the DVC was silenced through an unprecedented non-disclosure agreement. The reasons for the DVC’s departure were shrouded in secrecy as the cover-up continued.
It subsequently transpired that the chair of the council had made at least one further attempt to address the crisis in the university’s senior leadership. The university contracted a management consultancy to restore executive functionality. It is not known what precisely this entailed or what (if anything) it achieved.
The problems clearly were not solved. In January, the chair of the council met one of the other DVCs. While their accounts of the meeting differ, they appear to concur that the working relationship between the DVC and the vice-chancellor had broken down irreparably.
Yet, when the chair of the council addressed the Senate (in an online meeting) in late March to motivate for the reappointment of the vice-chancellor, she did not mention this apparently terminal breakdown in the relationship between the vice-chancellor and arguably the most important of her DVCs. Indeed, she assured the Senate that every member of the executive team had indicated that they were committed to working with the vice-chancellor if she was reappointed.
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The chair of the council further assured the Senate that she would hold the vice-chancellor to account for working relationships within the executive team. Answering a direct question, the chair of the council reassured the Senate that working relationships within the executive team had improved.
Yet again, the executive’s dysfunctionality was covered up, this time through what can at best be described as dissembling.
A few weeks later, UCT announced that the DVC was “relinquishing” her position “with immediate effect”. No reasons were given. It has subsequently transpired that the DVC had signed a non-disclosure agreement. Indeed, according to the (now former) DVC’s account, this had been negotiated and she had signed it prior to the chair of the council’s address to the Senate in March 2022.
The university appears to have embraced non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) as a way of continuing the cover-up. It is not clear that these NDAs serve any purpose other than keeping the mess in UCT’s leadership out of the public eye by buying the silence of dissenters. It is revealing that the university only began to use NDAs for retiring DVCs (and other senior executive officers) after the current leadership crisis began in 2018.
Regardless of the truth of what led to the departure of the second DVC, it seems that the vice-chancellor and the chair of the council continue to cover up continuing dysfunctionality within the university’s leadership.
When the Senate later posed questions to the chair of the council, she compounded her difficulties by replying (in writing) that the DVC had left for “personal and confidential” reasons without any mention of the breakdown in the relationship between the DVC and vice-chancellor.
The former DVC has contested the chair of the council’s version. Both the vice-chancellor and the chair of the council appear to have been, at best, very economical with the truth. At worst, they may have lied to the Senate. Moreover, it is not clear that the council was allowed to discuss these issues fully in the two years between mid-2020 and October 2022.
Covering up versus uncovering
Faced with this situation, a bare majority of the council voted, at its meeting on 6 October, yet again to cover up the ongoing crisis. The council controversially rejected proposals for an independent and presumably more transparent inquiry. Instead, the council reportedly voted in favour of investigating the Senate for its improper conduct!
It seems that the chair of the council and the vice-chancellor both cast their votes in favour of yet another cover-up (as did the deputy chair, who might herself be compromised).
This appears to have contravened the requirement in the Higher Education Act that council members with a conflict of interest recuse themselves. Some members of the council dissented publicly. Two days later, the chair of the council performed her apparent U-turn.
How much of a U-turn is this? Is the chair of the council prepared to allow the sordid state of the university’s leadership — and the council’s failures to address this — to be uncovered?
This saga of covering up failed and dysfunctional leadership at UCT is a stark instance of the managerialism and “corporate authoritarianism” that threatens many South African universities. Flawed leaders try to deflect scrutiny of their own failures by blaming the supposed opponents of “transformation”.
At UCT, this has been challenged. Both the Senate and the Academic Union are clearly furious. The council is deeply divided, with members in open revolt. Even the Black Academic Caucus and the outgoing Student Representative Council appear divided.
This is not surprising. The leadership crisis has repercussions across the university. The university drifts. Morale is low. Day-to-day operations are compromised.
If it is to salvage its reputation and pre-eminence, UCT must move fast to address the failures of leadership and it must do so transparently and publicly, dispelling the stench of previous cover-ups. DM
There’s nothing new here. It is a person out of her depth, and understandably suffering from imposter syndrome, using arrogance and bullying as tools to deflect from her inadequacies.
Fully agreed!
Neither the Chairperson of Council, nor the Vice-Chancellor’ appear to understand the concept of “conflict of interest”. If they had not voted, the outcome would have been the appointment of a judge to investigate the VC.
“Conflict of interest” is clearly defined in UCTs own policy document … to quote “A conflict between the private interests (financial, fiduciary, personal or other) of an individual and the official responsibilities of the individual in a position of trust.” In the same document the word “Recuse” is defined as “To disqualify oneself as a judge in a particular case; to remove oneself from participation to avoid conflict of interest.”
Ignorantia juris non excusat
This article is riddled with job titles. Call out the names of the individuals involved.
This is a really excellent (and extremely brave) articulation of the core issues about which most academic staff at UCT have been kept in the dark. This ongoing cover up is an affront to the core values of transparency, open discussion and vigorous debate that UCT, and all universities, should uphold.
As ever, Jeremy, a masterly summation of a very sordid situation.
Sordid it is, indeed, but Prof. Seekings’ piece, while more than adequately traversing issues of governance and honesty at UCT fails to address a much more fundamental issue: the steady erosion of standards of academic excellence, nay the very foundations on which UCT had carved an enviable international reputation for generations prior. Max Price’s ill-considered decision to prostrate himself (and the university) to a clutch of violent and racist rioters in 2016 set the stage and laid the foundations for what has become the norm at UCT. Phakeng has merely extended and refined a racialist agenda that not only will not benefit anyone, but cast into doubt the value of degrees and diplomas issues by the university going forward. The beneficiaries of race-based policies will come to understand the price that accompanies their “accomplishments”.
Rebecca Davis’ article a few days ago revealing the current events splitting the council made me want to post a comment then, but I ultimately did not. Jeremy’s article today prompted me to correct that. My comments may not be entirely “on point” but in the greater scheme they are relevant to the damage being done at UCT. As a UCT alumnus, I have been disappointed by the leadership of Prof Phakeng for some while now. In my view, the current trajectory of UCT is not toward being a great institution of higher learning and a leader in research, geared to producing exceptional graduates. Rather, by prioritising the personal ambitions of the VC and others in the council and senate, the trajectory is towards loss of leading status and reduced research, which ultimately results in the reduction of the quality of graduates. Under VC Phakeng’s stewardship the UCT Alumni newsletter has become more about her achievements and programs than about the alumni – to the point that I rarely read them. The UCT institution should be far greater than any VC and and the incumbent fails in projecting this value. Prof Phakeng’s personality and character fall far short of that required for a successful VC. She is not the correct person for the position.
Actual Preternatural’s last two sentences are manifestly true.
The stakes are enormous. Both VC and Chair should be required to motivate why they should not be fired for incompetence. Main criterion should be full disclosure.
Isn’t this the theme song in all of SA’s SOE’s? Incompetence in the name of transformation. Cry the beloved country.
Over 30 years ago, a group of us were asked to prepare a simple strip book to be used to educate nouveau ANC leaders on their role in governance at our tertiary institutions where an increasing number were taking on governorship roles.
We based it on the de Bono coloured hat principle whereby, on thinking about their new leadership role they had to mentally – and actually – take off their ANC red hat, and put on the blue hat of governorship, and with the blue (it may have been a different colour, I don’t recall) hat on they must base all their thinking and energies on enhancing the reputation and advantage of their tertiary institution. The book morphed into and included, a play and a narrative book.
I wonder what became of this? I wonder whether the two main protagonists, Natalie and Tim also ponder on this.
How will they do that??
Seems to me that a huge amount of pulling together is needed to restore UCT’s good name.
No amount of “pulling together” will restore UCT’s “good name”, as long as race and identity politics trump everything else.