Africa-Press – South-Africa. Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane has successfully interdicted a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe into a qualifications scandal at the University of Fort Hare.
Mabuyane launched a two-pronged application in the Eastern Cape High Court in Bhisho related to his enrolment at the university.
The first part was an urgent interdict against the SIU probe, until the court had heard the second part.
Mabuyane approached the court to have the entire SIU probe, with regard to his enrolment, declared unlawful and set aside.
The premier argued the investigation was unconstitutional because it went beyond the scope of a proclamation signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The proclamation, he argued, was limited to the admission of individuals who enrolled for honours degrees.
Mabuyane also argued the SIU was not empowered to investigate educational matters.
He said only Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande had the authority to investigate academic matters.
During the hearing before Judge Thandi Norman last week, Mabuyane’s legal counsel, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, argued the SIU had expanded its scope to include Mabuyane, who was not covered in the original proclamation.
Mabuyane’s team said the SIU could not change the scope of a presidential proclamation without notifying Ramaphosa.
Ngcukaitobi added Mabuyane did not enrol for an honours degree, but was enrolling for a master’s degree via the recognition of prior learning programme.
He said the SIU’s behaviour was unlawful, irrational, and abusive, considering Mabuyane was the one who had approached the university and offered to help its investigation.
In response, the SIU’s legal counsel, Gilbert Marcus, said, if Mabuyane was innocent, he had nothing to fear.
Marcus argued the SIU was empowered to probe corruption, adding often the scope of an investigation changed based on the evidence that emerged.
Delivering judgment, Norman declared the SIU was interdicted, pending the hearing of the second part of Mabuyane’s application.
Norman ruled the SIU had misinterpreted its authority and, although it mentioned master’s degrees and doctorates in its motivation to Ramaphosa, it never motivated for an inclusion in the proclamation.
She said the terms, “such as or including”, which the SIU and the university had used to grant itself extended investigative powers, were not in the original proclamation.
Norman cited responding papers from Ramaphosa, which urged the SIU to write a motivation if it sought to expand the scope of the probe to master’s degrees. The university, in turn, added its attorneys were studying the judgment.
“The University of Fort Hare is committed to see all issues of maladministration and fraud in the institution being dealt with in order to root out corruption,” said the university’s spokesperson, JP Roodt.
Welcoming the judgment, Mabuyane said his legal team was preparing court papers to deal with the second part of the application.
“We are also going to file new papers to review and set aside the so-called forensic report which the University of Fort Hare gave to the SIU as a basis to investigate me.”
He added the university had victimised him when it deregistered him and commissioned an investigation which made findings against him without hearing his side of the story.
Mabuyane accused Fort Hare vice-chancellor Professor Sakhela Buhlungu of having an axe to grind and for perpetually framing him.
The SIU said it had studied the judgment and was happy that it did not interdict or suspend the Fort Hare University investigation in its entirety.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said:
“We are also optimistic that we will present our case when Part B of this matter is heard. The SIU is further encouraged by paragraph 66 of the judgment which states that: ‘Where there is evidence that implicates unlawful conduct in so far as the master’s degree is concerned, there is nothing stopping the SIU from preparing a motivation as it did with the earlier proclamation and request the president to proclaim that the registration for [the] master’s degree, too, should be investigated.'”
Kganyago added that the judgment had noted that there was no evidence of malice by the SIU.
“The SIU will explore all legal options available to it.”
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