Cape Town - Cape Peninsula University of Technology's (CPUT) newly appointed vice-chancellor, Dr Chris Nhlapo, has come under fire after walking out of the university alumni annual general meeting (AGM) where he was supposed to preside over convocation elections.
The convocation is one of the university's oversight structures made up of former graduates and has two representative in the institution's council, the highest decision-making body.
The AGM had the election of convocation executives on the agenda.
Nhlapo and the university's secretary are tasked to preside over the elections to ensure they are constitutional.
However, according to a group of convocation members, Nhlapo left the meeting before elections could take place. This led to the collapse of the meeting, where about 400 graduates were in attendance.
A member of the convocation, who wanted to remain anonymous, referred to Nhlapo’s actions as a “reckless decision” made to deliberately stall convocation. Due to the collapse, Nhlapo would be acting president of the convocation, once the current executive's term ends on Wednesday.
“He has ulterior motives. How can a vice-chancellor who is head of CPUT be head of convocation to which he is accountable to? Who will he then account to? Convocation is supposed to make him account.”
He accused Nhlapo of stalling the convocation elections to enable the current convocation representative on council to sit in in the upcoming council elections. “I have written to the council chair and asked that the council elections be placed on hold until official convocation members are elected. Or else the council elections themselves will be unconstitutional,” he said.
CPUT spokesperson Lauren Kansley said: “Accusations that the VC left early are blatantly untrue. Instead, the meeting commenced very late and ran close to four hours overtime. In fact, the VC cancelled other very important engagements to remain at the convocation meeting to deliver his VC’s report. At this stage the meeting had degenerated with many convocation members either leaving the venue or socialising outside.
"The VC and members of his executive committee only made the decision to leave after 3pm. It was scheduled to end at noon because very little of the agenda had been covered and it was obvious that the gathering was becoming disruptive.”
The Cape Argus made attempts to get comment from current convocation president Bheki Hadebe and interim council chairperson Clive Roos, but they had not responded by the time of publication.
Convocation presidency candidate Saziso Matiwane said he had written a formal complaint to Nhlapo. “His departure was the pinnacle point.
"In response to my complaint the VC never entertained much of the contents or issues raised; all he did was to exonerate himself. At that meeting people were angry as they were deliberately provoked, by stalling the process to avoid the elections. It ended being a waste of time.”Matiwane said there was no support for the outgoing convocation executive, therefore leaving the meeting early was a strategy for Nhlapo and the executive.
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