Grant Abbott: Corruption, capture & victimisation of whistleblowers at SA universities

Bad governance involving collusion between councils and management is enabling corruption and capture at some of South Africa’s historic universities. That is the charge from National Tertiary Education Union Secretary General Grant Abbott who says: “We've coined the term, you use the Corruption Mafia and that's a very good term. We've also coined the term University Capture in the line of State Capture that we see a lot of that unfortunately happening.” Abbott describes the “systemetic targeting” of whistleblowers and union leaders, including his union president who was kidnapped and tortured before being dismissed. “…it had happened one Sunday night, 12 men arrived at his house. We later learned that three of them were police officers. They did not produce an arrest warrant or anything like that, but you can imagine 12 men arriving at your house and he's at home on a Sunday evening with his wife and children. And they have AK-47s and big rifles and dressed in police uniform, and tell him he must come with them. They proceeded to then take him to an undisclosed location and tortured him for seven hours, allegedly trying to get him to confess to involvement somehow in the attempted assassination on the Vice Chancellor back then.” The CCMA has now overturned the dismissal and ordered his reinstatement. Abbott also comments on the case of the corruption-busting lawyers who now find themselves in the dock alongside some of the people they had investigated. He outlines the union’s proposals to stop the corruption at and capture of higher education institutions..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here:.Listen here:.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:02.204)Has the Corruption Mafia enabled the capture of the historic Fort Hare University? We speak to Grant Abbott of the National Tertiary Education Union. Welcome, Grant. Grant Abbott (00:17.806)Thank you Chris and thanks for having me and thanks to your listeners for listening. Chris Steyn (00:25.222)Firstly, what are the biggest governance concerns right now? Grant Abbott (00:31.896)Sure. I think we have quite a few, apart from just university across the sector or just Fort Hare University, but across the sector, we have significant governance concerns. There are universities without councils in place or with councils that are just not operating properly. A council in a university is the governance structure. It's supposed to keep the management, the vice chancellor accountable, but often they're not. They collude together, the council and management, unfortunately that's just one of the reasons or one of the environments that allows for corruption to take place at institutions. We've coined the term, you use the Corruption Mafia and that's a very good term. We've also coined the term University Capture in the line of State Capture that we see a lot of that unfortunately happening. Fort Hare has just been the one now where in the news recently, when I say recently, the last year, the 172 million rand fraud and corruption. And I think that's probably just scratching the iceberg with this is one institution. So that is a grave concern to us. Chris Steyn (01:54.288)Now, please tell us what has happened to your union president and give us some details on the victimisation of workers and union leaders at these universities. Grant Abbott (02:07.246)Sure, sure, So we'll start with, since you mentioned him, our president. He has, at the end of 2023, the university dismissed him in what we considered a real internal predetermined process. You know, disciplinary hearings are supposed to be free and impartial. I mean, the chairperson in that is now one of the co-accused. The chairperson who was the chairperson of that internal hearing is one of the co-accused. The person who was initiating it, the HR director…is one of the arrested persons. And what we can say the good news is that we really fought that battle right to the end with the CCMA and the CCMA overturned the dismissal and ordered reinstatement. It was just an, they recognised it for the farcical process that it is. But unfortunately, he's just one of a few in the case of, there's another university where our chairperson was equally dismissed for what they said was a breach of confidentiality when she and a few other chairpersons of other unions had written to the minister about the appointment of the vice chancellor in that case, that was at CPUT, they dismissed her. And it went almost five, maybe six years all the way up to the Labour Appeals court who eventually overturned the dismissal. She would have been reinstated. However, six years later, she was now on retirement and couldn't go back. That's just the craziness within the sector. And then a similar case with a member at DUT and two other members at Fort Hare and our other branch chair at Fort Hare. So there is a systematic targeting of union leaders, of worker’s leaders. And what happens is that the difficulty is that… Grant Abbott (04:31.414)…they do that purposefully because then it's like, who wants to speak up if the very top leaders are being targeted and can lose their jobs? Which is why in our president's case, we really said we have to fight this all the way because we have to send a message that says that corruption can't have the final say. People who speak out, a union who speaks out, stakeholders who speak out, it’s a courageous thing to do and we need to say, you know, as difficult as what it is, sometimes in a game can be won or lost, they say at half time. Do you give up at half time or do you really push through? We said we had to push through on this one to send a message and say that the last word is not going to be corruption. The last word is going to be that good actually prevails. And maybe there's still another twist in the tale. We just never know. The point is we want to say we need people to come forward and say despite the possibility, despite this, we're going to stand up in the face of corruption, speak truth to power and say no more. Chris Steyn (05:42.268)Now, you've watched the interviews we've done with the corruption busting lawyers who now find themselves in the dock alongside some of the people they had investigated at Fort Hare University. What do you make of that case, Grant? Grant Abbott (05:59.998)It's just absolutely crazy, the stories around Fort Hare, around those lawyers. It's strange one for us because of our involvement with Fort Hare, at one point we were working against BCHC in the sense that they were acting for the university. And now you just see how that whole thing has come full circle. And I think there's been a lot of people being thrown under the bus to kind of cover up for some people. And I don't want to say that that the Vice Chancellor is the kingpin because there isn't much evidence of it. But it really strikes me as incredibly difficult. I'm happy to say this because we've said this before on mainstream media, is that either he is completely complicit in everything that's gone on in Fort Hare, because we have to ask the question, how is it that 26 employees and service providers are arrested, but few questions are asked about him even though all 26 of those were employed under his tenure. Now that means he's either complicit, in which case he should be criminally investigated, or he knew nothing about it, in which case we say he is actually, sorry for saying it, but he's incompetent. How can you not know that that was all happening under your watch? And are those people really the main victims or the main perpetrators rather of the crimes going on there. It's absolutely nuts. How complicit even in it is the State, so to speak. You know, looking at the interviews of Conradie and Sarah, it's clear that there's that, well, it's clear to me as a lay person, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems clear that there is some form of….Read more: .BN Briefing: ANC's BEE double-down; O'Sullivan details deepening Mantengu saga; Musk’s xAI win.Grant Abbott (08:16.43)…victimisation even against them as high profile lawyers. How can people get away with that? And I don't know if you know with our presidents before he was dismissed by Fort Hare and then reinstated by CCMA, he was kidnapped and tortured on a Sunday evening in, I think it was April 22 or 23 for seven hours. There's been charges that have been laid by us with IPID, but nothing's gone further than that, to the best of our knowledge. And it was by members, at least some of those, that were members, recognised members of SAPS. So there's been no further movement on that case. So, you know, what is happening here? It's really, really...it's not good for where the sector is. This is higher education for Heaven's sake. This is a place where people are supposed to be learning, we're supposed to be training the leaders of tomorrow. It's not supposed to be a place of corruption and commodification of education where people are enriching themselves. It's training leaders of tomorrow. But we're not really seeing that and that's been and that's really the sad thing for us. That's why we speaking up and saying this has to stop. Chris Steyn (09:47.556)What support, if any, has the union had from those in power, politicians, parties, the government? Grant Abbott (09:57.55)I think one thing that has been a shining light for us, a glimmer of hope, has been the Portfolio Committee that seems to be taking its job very seriously in this particular administration, where the right questions are being asked of the right people and people are being held accountable. So in that sense, we celebrate the work of that of that committee. We are in regular contact with the Department of Higher Education. So we recently had a meeting with them and there is definitely a real interest to engage and to see how we can make the sector better, which is good. There's some good things on the horizon. I can't speak too much about it yet, but there's some good things that are being considered by the department with the input that we've given both to the Portfolio Committee and the department. So in that way, we are indeed happy. At university level, at local institution level, seems to be very little support. In the Fort Hare matter, again, unfortunately, we speak about Fort Hare. It's the elephant in the room of the, it's kind of like the, it's just a bit of a sad story. After that harrowing experience of kidnapping and et cetera of our president, there was no support given to him. The university obviously has a wellness programme as every university does. He was not offered that by the Vice Chancellor or the institution. Even to this day, despite us saying we want to work with people to fix this, very few interactions have happened from university level, from the actual institution saying, yes, as a stakeholder, let's talk, let's see what we can do to make the institution better. It does happen at some, but very few is actually happening, and at Fort Hare there's been no stakeholder engagement on these issues whatsoever. Chris Steyn (12:21.392)I just want to go back to the incident involving your president. Who were involved or allegedly involved in his kidnapping and what was behind it? What did they hope to achieve? Grant Abbott (12:40.11)So, it had happened one Sunday night, 12 men arrived at his house. We later learned that three of them were police officers. They did not produce an arrest warrant or anything like that, but you can imagine 12 men arriving at your house and he's at home on a Sunday evening with his wife and children. And they have AK-47s and big rifles and dressed in police uniform tell him he must come with them. They proceeded to then take him to an undisclosed location and tortured him for seven hours, allegedly trying to get him to confess to involvement somehow in the attempted assassination on the Vice Chancellor back then. It was absolutely bizarre. We've actually released two statements and we had a press statement about it just after that happened. I can share those documents with you again. And it's just very unfortunate. But that's what happened. And you can imagine just how that affects an individual, how that has. Just sadly, there's nothing that has transpired of any substance…from the cases that have been filed. So we have lawyers that are working on it, absolutely, and are pushing those matters in both civil suits just to get the State to respond. So at this stage, that's just sadly where that is. And we are now about two years down the line. Chris Steyn (14:22.97)You must have many cases involving universities at the moment. You must be spending a lot of time in your lawyer's office. Grant Abbott (14:29.646)Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, that that is the case, which is also not not a great thing because universities, this actually came up a few times in the Portfolio Committee is that they have quote unquote…deep pockets because they use the pockets of the taxpayer government fund, right? Unions don't have that that benefit, we have membership fees, and that's it. You know, we don't get any government funding or anything like that. And let's be honest, a university will just keep litigating a matter into the ground until you can't continue anymore because they know that government isn't going to let a university fail. And so they continue with that. And so the excessive and exorbitant spending on legal fees has been raised by us, it has been raised as concerns by the Portfolio Committee, I’ve heard…And the department's looking into it. They just know that they can litigate you out of the game by just appealing all the way through to however it is. Then eight years later, there's a new Vice Chancellor, everyone's kind of gone. And that's just the sad story of where is at. So yeah, I spend a lot of time in lawyers' offices, and they spend a lot of time in my office. But it's a...It's a good problem to have in a sense that you can have that backing behind you. And some of our lawyers have been really good just to do some work for us pro bono. But you can imagine that's also, when you've got to go to court, there are still court fees whether you like or not. Chris Steyn (16:33.54)Lastly, what has to be done urgently to stop the corruption and capture of higher education institutions? Grant Abbott (16:45.806)I think, urgently, I would say one of the things that has to happen and I know it has been considered is this. The legislation needs to change in terms of institutional autonomy. Now, very quickly, institutional autonomy means that each university is autonomous and can run its own administration and is governed by a council. But it's a certain qualified autonomy which is often forgotten about because that qualified autonomy would be that they are still, they have to be accountable. However, for the State or for the minister to intervene, there is such a lot of red tape, so to speak, for there has to be an investigative, there has to be an assessor's report, an assessor needs to be appointed that can take anywhere between you know, six and 12 months, maybe 18. Then the minister needs to write to council to respond. Then council can still take that report on review as is the case with UNISA and DUT and other places. And then that just holds up the whole process even further before the only thing a minister can really do is dissolve council and appoint an administrator. Now, you again, you're talking about 18 months, two years, depending whether the council appeals that assessors report or not. So there needs to be an amendment to allow earlier intervention where there is prima facie evidence of maladministration and misconduct by governance structures. There needs to be a, for us, one of the primary key blocks that holds accountability in place is stakeholder engagement that has regressed over the last, say, 10, 15 years. In the first administration in 1997, government produced a white paper called Transformation in Higher Education. It held institutional autonomy and stakeholder engagement as key foundations for accountability. Things were going really well. It's just unfortunate over the last 15 years or so… Grant Abbott (19:09.536)…our assessment is that that seems to have regressed and stakeholders are kept at arm's length and stakeholders being unions, SRCs, alumni, et cetera. And so that needs to be advanced. We've proposed an idea to the departments about a four-way type of structure similar to what is happening at NEDLAC where stakeholders come together. It would be trade unions, SRCs, governments, and maybe USAf which is the umbrella body for vice-chancellors, to sit around the table on a sector-wide level and say, how do we fix this? That's what needs to take place, it's stakeholder engagement and the ability to have courageous conversations in safe spaces. That needs to be championed once again. So those for us, think, are the main things. And people coming forward, join unions, join stakeholders that are speaking out, and let's work on this together. So that would be how I would say we need to urgently look at those things. Even before the end of the year, we should be seeing some movement. Chris Steyn (20:29.382)Thank you. That was Grant Abbott of the National Tertiary Education Union speaking to BizNews and I am Chris Steyn. Thank you, Grant. Grant Abbott (20:40.91)Thank you.

Grant Abbott: Corruption, capture & victimisation of whistleblowers at SA universities

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