How decades of fraud and corruption plague the University of Fort Hare
The University of Fort Hare (UFH) has been entrenched in fraud and corruption for over two decades, involving staff from cleaners to Deputy Vice Chancellors. Scams include academic and financial fraud, business fronting, and misappropriation of funds. Despite reports to law enforcement, few prosecutions have occurred. Recent arrests are being misrepresented as a solution, while Vice Chancellor Sakhela Buhlungu deflects blame and avoids accountability for widespread corruption under his leadership.
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By Chelle Waters
It is a known fact that the University of Fort Hare (UFH) is plagued with fraud and corruption and has been this way for at least twenty years. From cleaners to Deputy Vice Chancellors, many are on the take and form part of an excessive number of scams. Some run the scams themselves only coming to work simply to do so, while others make substantial use of their colleagues' deceit.
These scams include academic fraud, financial fraud, business fronting, siphoning money out of the University in various forms, selling degree certificates, selling registrations, inflating costs for catering for favoured suppliers, sexual favours, running businesses from their desks, and having personal flights and accommodation paid for at the University's expense.
A few examples of the highly concerning and deep-seated corruption scams at the UFH include:
Employee 1 – The Head of Student Governance who fleeced the University of an estimated R24 million through facilitating business deals and cover quoting in relation to SRC events. His case went to arbitration, and the University succeeded in proving that he facilitated these corrupt practices.
Employee 2 – An administrator who facilitated cover quoting for her own business and that of her close family and friends to the tune of approximately R12 million.
Employee 3 – An Administrator who conducted business with the University through a business linked to her husband and former SRC members. This involved rampant cover quoting. He also rigged work in favour of a preferred supplier and failed to report that a colleague manipulated supplier quotations. The amount involved is more than R9 million
Employee 4 – An administrator who facilitated cover quoting, earned roughly R15,000 per month, yet she had more than R6 million running through her bank account.
Employee 5 – A professor who approved his personal company's quotations as the most competitive, and authorised the payment requisitions for goods and services. Through this process he managed to misappropriate about R5 million. He also facilitated academic fraud, is in the country illegally, and his base qualifications that inform his PhD are fraudulent.
Employee 6 – A personal assistant to a professor who conducted business with family members and friends and facilitated cover quoting by instructing suppliers on how to manipulate the system in intricate detail. She also had the University pay for her personal flight and car rental to attend a wedding in a different province and, additionally, manipulated supplier quotations and facilitated academic fraud.
Employee 7 – A Dean who misused University property for personal use. She also awarded opportunities and a financial bursary to her son from her department despite him studying in a completely unrelated faculty at the institution.
Employee 8 – A personal assistant to a Dean who conducted business with the University through her own business and those of her family members. She also appointed her sister as a cleaner, paying her up to R2,000 per day for cleaning.
Employee 9 – An Acting Director who double-dipped into bursary funds and also ran multiple businesses from his desk, including a business that was competing with the University's offering of short courses.
Employee 10 – An administrator who conducted business with the University using his girlfriend's banking details on the invoices. He facilitated cover quoting and selected his own transport services as the elected supplier.
Employee 11 – Wiped the debt of a student who owed over R250,000 in student fees to the University. She did this for a number of students to release statements of results and degrees. She and her accomplice received roughly 10% of the outstanding student fees in return for their fraudulent scheme, which cost the University an estimated R1.5 million over a period of two years.
Employee 12– A former Deputy Vice Chancellor falsified an invoice to secure security upgrades by a Cape Town-based company at his home in Johannesburg paid for by the University. He also insisted that a junior employee provide full IT access to enable the downloading of all employees' mailboxes remotely.
What is very worrying, in addition to the fraud committed by the above 12 employees alone, is that despite these matters being reported to law enforcement agencies since 2019, to date no one has been prosecuted. At most, one employee was arrested this year on the strength of a complaint laid 5 years ago. Astonishingly, no one else has even been questioned in connection with the complaints against them.
And yet, the arrests this year of 15 people for alleged fraud and corruption at the University is being hailed as the solution to the excessive fraud and corruption that continues to take place on campus. As if now that these 15 have been identified, all of the UFH's problems have been solved. This could not be further from the truth and should not be used as a decoy to hide the highly concerning issues that still abound at the University.
Most concerning, however, is the attitude and behaviour of the UFH's Vice Chancellor, Sakhela Buhlungu (Buhlungu) who seems to have used the arrests and media exposure as an opportunity to cry wolf, expressing his disappointment and sense of betrayal at every opportunity. In a recent BizNews article, writer Chelle Waters said, "Vice Chancellor, Professor Sakhela Buhlungu, has done nothing but pass the blame and express his grave disappointment at the happenings at the UFH – firstly, he should be taking responsibility for the rampant fraud that has gone on over the years and secondly, he can't be a worthy leader if he claims ignorance of what was happening at the University while under his watch. In any event, we have seen factual proof that he knew exactly what staff were doing and yet remained silent while doing nothing to stop it or bring those committing fraud to justice."
Grant Abbott, Secretary General of NTEU, also shared his opinion of the Vice Chancellor (VC) recently, posting the following as a comment on a Daily Maverick article about the UFH:
"I thought reporters were supposed to be unbias? Everything there has written about Buhlungu paints him as the Messiah of Fort Hare… if all these people somehow knew each other before Fort Hare that is largely irrelevant. The VC is failing to take any responsibility. How can so many people and service providers who are so corrupt be appointed in to an institution on his watch? If this is the narrative he is peddling, then actually he is saying that he is incompetent to do the job. (sic)"
The above comment is significant as it is remarkable that with all the turmoil taking place at the UFH involving the arrests of senior managers relating to allegations of murder, racketeering, fraud and corruption, more questions are not being asked about the VC's role in it all.
How is it possible that several of the senior managers and some of the other staff members that are among the arrested were recruited by and reported directly to the VC and yet he has not been held to account? Or that he claims innocence in knowing about the goings on when they all, and let's face it, they are a substantial amount, took place on his watch over the years. Where was he?
Service Level Agreements
Another burning question is why are some of the accused arrested for tender irregularities?
Universities are not governed by the Public Finance Management Act, although they, and by 'they' we mean the Accounting Officer (the Vice Chancellor), must abide by the principles in the PFMA as a state funded institution. However, abiding by the principles in the PFMA does not create consequences for suppliers when the University flouts its own processes.
If service providers were appointed by the University without proper procurement procedures being followed or service level agreements being signed, then the blame lies, or should lie, with the relevant officials of the University and not the service providers.
Any payment over One Million Rand must be signed off by the VC. Other officials who should be held liable would include the CFO who would have to play a role in such large payments. And the head of legal would be responsible for ensuring that the University has appropriate agreements in place for all service providers and yet none of them have been held accountable.
Stakeholders at the University should be asking questions about these failures. In particular, who recruited this so-called syndicate into the University, since most of them were working in the VC's office? The media should stop being seduced by a man [the VC] who became famous by standing on the lifeless body of Mr Vesele, his bodyguard. He still claims to have been the actual target of the assassination which is not correct. Mr Vesele was the target; however, the VC shamefully uses his death as an opportunity to promote himself and spew his lies.
What happens next
While the recent arrests are important, not dealing with the historical rot, in respect of which all the work has already been done and shared, the problems at the University will not disappear. On the contrary, syndicates which have been broken up will regroup and be back in business and tragically, the employees referred to above will never have to answer for their gross misdeeds.
And VC Buhlungu? Unless questioned and held to account, he will continue feigning ignorance, pleading for the public's support and expressing his disappointment over the criminal university he continues to run and yet has so little knowledge of.
One thing is for certain he is no Messiah and he is certainly not the corruption buster he paints himself out to be.
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