By Palesa Lekeka
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Minister for Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande
BLOEMFONTEIN - Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande has taken management at the Central University of Technology (CUT) to court to smooth the way for administrator Professor Stanley Ridge to assume office at the troubled institute.
“We asked them to explain issues that were raised in 2011 but they lied to us. The assessor went in and told us that we had not been told the truth. It is my job as minister to protect tax payers’ money,” Nzimande said in an interview with SA FM.
He said that CUT management had barred the administrator from entering campus which has been sealed off and is heavily patrolled by guards from a private security company.
“We will not rest until the university has been cleaned up. We do not like this as we are wasting a lot of tax payers’money but we will now wait for the court to adjudicate,” said Nzimande.
The institution beefed up security for two weeks ago in a last ditch attempt to keep the administrator at bay.
“This matter is in litigation, therefore CUT cannot comment at this stage,” said the institution’s spokesperson, Dan Maritz.
Earlier in the week, The New Age reported that a member of the now dissolved CUT council Shadrack Cezuka, said beleaguered Vice-Chancellor and Professor Thandwa Mthembu, did not have the consent of the council to challenge Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande in court using university funds.
This is after Mthembu stated in an interview with Public Eye a month earlier that he would challenge the allegations tabled in independent assessor Professor Julian Smith’s report to the Minister.
“The report is there and is public and the only way to change it is to go to court to argue that it is neither here or there and obviously one has to be very careful when in the process of doing that,” Mthembu had said.
Cezuka said he and some council members want it to be known that they were “not opposing” Nzimande.
He told TNA that council had learned “with disgust” that Mthembu had paid law firm Phatshoane Henney Inc half a million rand after they told him that it would be wrong.
“I was appalled when he brought in private security on campus on Monday last week to bar administrator Ridge from entering,” he said.
Maritz said that Cezuka was no longer part of council and that he had resigned over three months ago.
He would, however, not confirm or deny whether Mthembu was acting alone in his legal war or was working in tandem with the council.
Cezuka said that in a meeting on Tuesday, July 3, Mthembu and some of the members of council had refused to budge, which resulted in a lengthy meeting in the council chambers between Ridge and officials from the department, Mthembu and the council.
Maritz, however, denied any knowledge of such a meeting or its outcome.
A week ago management issued a written statement explicitly rejecting the administrator’s appointment and stating that they would not permit him to commence his duties until such time the court of law had ruled on their application.
“Council’s legal advisors have been instructed to proceed with appropriate legal action, including an application, as resolved, and are attending to this matter urgently,” the statement said.
CUT’s woes began when the independant assessor’s report and recommendations were gazetted by the Minister.
The Vice Chancellor was accused of mismanagement, intimidation of staff, unfair labour practises and financial mismanagement, among others which Mthembu dismissed as “sweeping allegations”.
Smith recommended that CUT be placed under administration, the Vice-Chancellor Thandwa Mthembu placed on special leave while the University Council is dissolved.