Environment
& Science Writer
SCIENCE and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor has been challenged by the DA to appoint a new director of the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) as a matter of urgency.
The outgoing director, Professor Phil Charles, who has been in South Africa for seven years, vacates the post in September. He will return to the astronomy chair at Southampton University in the UK that has been held open for him.
Charles was fully exonerated in a disciplinary hearing after a disagreement with his employers, the National Research Foundation (NRF), last year. The failed charges against him have not been made public, despite his request for this to be done.
“It’s believed he was accused of insubordination and threatened with dismissal for challenging the unilateral decision of the NRF management on the site of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA radio telescope) operations centre in Cape Town,” said the DA’s spokeswoman on science and technology, Marian Shinn.
Noting that a recent review had described the SAAO as the leading astronomical institute in Africa and astronomy the “jewel in the crown of African science”, Shinn said she had written to Pandor asking for an explanation of the delay in appointing Charles’s successor.
“The pending vacancy was first advertised in the South African media on November 19 last year. I was startled to read in the Review of the NRF astro-geosciences cluster published this month (June) that the process to find a successor has not started, seven months after the post was advertised.”
But in response to Shinn’s statement, Pandor’s office told the Cape Argus that the NRF was responsible for employment at the SAAO, not the department, and that questions should be directed there.
Although the newspaper’s query was forwarded to the NRF by the department, no response had been forthcoming by the end of last week.
The NRF falls under the political control of Pandor’s department.
Shinn said the review panel had stated in its report that it was “essential that a search committee be set up immediately to recruit a successor” to Charles, as it would be a lengthy process to find an astronomer of international stature to take his place – probably some 18 months.
The review panel had reported that the NRF’s suspension of Charles and the subsequent inquiry had “resulted in damaging publicity in the international press and disquiet in the international astronomical community, and also had a detrimental effect on the morale and productivity of SAAO staff and a negative impact on the relations between the NRF and the Southern African Large Telescope (Salt international) partners”, she added.
The review panel had complimented Pandor, the chairwoman and the president of the NRF, Professor Belinda Bozzoli and Dr Albert van Jaarsveld, for their efforts to rebuild confidence between the NRF and the astronomical community.
However, the panel’s praise had not been extended to the senior NRF official whose “autocratic management style” had started the “ruckus” with Charles, Shinn said.
The panel also said of the SAAO that “there are few other astronomical institutes in the world, if any, where an important research infrastructure is combined with such a pioneering and substantial programme of education and outreach at all levels”.
It was therefore imperative that the stability and reputation of the institute be preserved through the timely appointment of an appropriate successor to Charles.