Can a new leader douse Fort Hare’s blazing dysfunction?

Within the course of three weeks, the University of Fort Hare’s governing council took three different positions on the resignation of its vice-chancellor – which at the end of last week became a firing. That should worry anyone who now expects the same council to steady the university behind its new leader.

The facts first. Sakhela Buhlungu, on precautionary suspension since 30 March, resigned with immediate effect on 28 September, hours before he was due to open his defence at his disciplinary hearing. But the university council reportedly refused to let the resignation take effect immediately, insisting that he serve a notice period.

The council first relied on the employee relations policy. When Buhlungu sent the policy back and asked it to identify the relevant clause, council switched the justification to his employment contract. Then, council changed position again, shortening the notice period and setting Buhlungu’s exit for 23 October. Then, on 21 October, it dismissed him with immediate effect after finding him guilty of misconduct.

I spent part of my career at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), where every notice dispute starts with one question: show me the clause. Fort Hare’s council failed that test. Did Fort Hare’s lawyers see the letter before it went out? Why did council give up a fight it had insisted on only days earlier, if not because it knew it would lose? And why did it then fire Buhlungu only two days before his employment was due to end anyway?

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On 16 October, a special council meeting appointed Wezile Chitha as Fort Hare’s next vice-chancellor. A medical doctor and health economist who was previously executive dean of medicine and health sciences at Walter Sisulu University, Chitha was the council’s unanimous choice, according to the university’s statement. The university’s convocation executive committee president told SABC News that his appointment was a chance to restore stability and confidence.

I hope he is right. But quite apart from the mess over Buhlungu’s departure, the appointment process has its own trail of doubts. The Daily Dispatch reported that the first cut of the shortlist, from 43 applicants down to five, was handed to a contracted service provider, prompting questions from an insider asking why the council had outsourced its fiduciary duties. Critics also claimed the job description had been watered down.

The council insists the process followed approved procedure. If that is so, it would cost nothing to say who the service provider was, what it was paid, and on what basis 38 people were cut before any member of the selection committee looked at them.

The unanimous vote deserves the same scrutiny. In April, the Mail & Guardian reported that two senior council members had warned their colleagues of a governance crisis resulting from, among other things, the marginalisation of minority views, council “overreach” into operations and, at the same time, an increased reliance on task teams to do work they said should be handled by the council itself.

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By the end of July, the newspaper reported that both had resigned, saying their dissent had been suppressed, both over Buhlungu’s suspension and over the process to appoint his successor. Unanimity is easy to reach once the people likely to disagree have walked out. A council that wants its new vice-chancellor to start with real authority should be worried about that, not proud of it.

Nor will the promised stability and confidence arrive quickly. Chitha is “expected to assume office during the first quarter of 2027”, according to the university statement. Students and academics who, less than a year ago, watched their buildings burn after a petrol bomb attack by protesters, are being asked to wait out several more months of drift.

And what of the corruption that Buhlungu said he was fighting? His tenure was not ordinary. He ran the university with bodyguards; one of them was shot dead in January 2023. Inquiries by the government’s Special Investigating Unit followed, and so did threats against people who spoke up. In April, insiders told the Mail & Guardian that the knives had been out for Buhlungu for years.

None of that clears him of blame, of course. As justification for his summary dismissal last week, the university said an independent disciplinary hearing found him guilty of appointing two executive directors without consulting senate or the institutional forum and without council approval, as well as of making disparaging statements about the university to the media.

Yet the people who did well out of Fort Hare’s dysfunction did not leave with Buhlungu on 23 October. They are still on campus, still in the supply chain, still in the networks that decide who gets a contract and who gets a threat. A new vice-chancellor, however able, will soon learn which battles are expensive. Whether he fights them will depend on whether council stands behind him when he does, and nothing this year suggests it knows how.

If council wants Chitha to succeed, it can start now. Publish what this saga has cost – including six months of a vice-chancellor’s salary for no work, the investigation by a firm of chartered accountants and the legal fees. Release the investigation’s full findings. Tell staff and students which SIU matters are still open and who is responsible for pursuing them. Commission an independent review of council’s own conduct this year and publish that, too.

Indeed, higher education minister Buti Manamela has grounds to send an independent assessor. And the assessor’s terms of reference should cover the council, as well as the people it chose to discipline.

Last October, after the petrol bomb attacks, I argued in Times Higher Education for a national conflict resolution service for universities, modelled on the CCMA. I had students and management in mind. I underplayed the boardroom. When a council and a vice-chancellor fall out, who mediates?

At Fort Hare, the answer seems to have been lawyers first and newspapers second. If that does not change, Chitha risks simply being the next person to fall victim to the university’s dysfunction.

Pikolomzi Qaba is a doctoral student at a South African university and writes in a personal capacity.