Internal strife after UCT Student Representative Council spends R100k on Koko and Mpofu lecture

Fellow Student Representative Council members accuse University of Cape Town SRC of by-passing procedures to approve over R100,000 to fund the invitation.

The UCT EFF Student Command-led Student Representative Council (SRC) is alleged to have circumvented standard procedures to authorise over R100,000 for the invitation of former Eskom interim CEO Matshela Koko and legal advocate Dali Mpofu SC.

The money was spent on flights, accommodation, and catering.

Last month, the pair visited UCT as part of the SRC public lecturer series, where they discussed “The Pitfalls of the Zondo Commission” as the theme.

The DA Student Organisation (Daso) claims that for such funding to be approved, the SRC first has to meet, discuss and if there are disagreements, vote before a budget is approved. The UCT SRC is composed of one South African Students Congress (Sasco), two Daos, and 10 EFF Student Command (EFFSC) members.

Correspondence between some SRC members and the SRC Student Advocacy Co-ordinator seen by Daily Maverick shows that the co-ordinator was not aware that the full SRS did not meet to approve the funding.

“In terms of the approval, I was advised by the SRC Presidency that the event was an SRC event and had been approved by the SRC along with the associated costs. I have very much welcomed the constituting of the SRC finance committee as they will need to approve all future costs and I will only sign off once they have approved budget requests,” reads the correspondence.

The EFFSC could have still used its majority to push through budget approval if a meeting had been held.

“To secure funding for these event costs, the SRC presidency fraudulently claimed that the full SRC had voted in favour of this budget, which was not the case,” said Daso’s Tom Wellz.

“Without a finance committee, approval from the full SRC was required for all expenditures. Unfortunately, there was no meeting, and no correspondence was sent to Sasco and Daso members of the SRC regarding the approval. This came to light only when an email was sent to the entire student body inviting them to the event.”

Controversial invitation

In November last year, Koko had his corruption case struck off the roll in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, over “unreasonable delays” after the NPA’s Investigating Directorate (ID) had asked for yet another postponement.

This was Koko’s second invite this year to the university. In March, he was invited to speak to a final-year engineering class. The university faced criticism for the invite, which prompted interim Vice Chancellor Emer Prof Daya Reddy to provide context of the invitation.

Reddy said students of a fourth-year course had been assigned the task of writing an opinion piece on Koko’s term as acting Eskom CEO, using all information available in the public domain, as part of a case study on ethics and professionalism.

“Following [the] completion of their assignments, Mr Koko was invited to address the class and participate in a discussion centred on their assignment topic.

“The lecturer for this course invites around five or six guests each year, often senior individuals in industry or political leaders. Such practice is not uncommon in courses located in one or other of the professional degree programmes. In addition, such engagements provide a space for contestation of sometimes varying ideas, and seek to hone students’ ability to reason critically, to act ethically, and to judge professionally.”

In response to the questions, the UCT SRC said in response to questions they followed all necessary and appropriate steps.

“As the EFFSC holds the majority within the SRC, it is expected for us to have [a] majority vote in many of the decisions taken. The decision to invite Matshela Koko and Adv Dali Mpofu was supported by the absolute majority within our structure. All 10 of the EFFSC’s deployed SRC members approved of the event among the 14 members of the SRC.”

The SRC added that most of the funds were invested in catering, benefiting many students who attended the event.

“R88,000 was allocated to the catering service, with the aim of catering for more than 600 students. The public lecture event aligns with the SRC’s vision of protecting academic freedom and initiating conversations that may be uncomfortable but necessary. It provided students with a valuable opportunity to engage with different perspectives on issues impacting our country.”

Charges have been laid in the Student Governance Court, and Daso is also considering approaching the University Student Disciplinary Tribunal. DM