Raising Alarm over Apparent Governance Failures at UCT and Calling for Accountability from Council Leadership

JOHANNESBURG | Sunday, 4 October 2026 Public Interest SA is deeply concerned by mounting reports pointing to what appears to be a serious governance and leadership crisis at the University of Cape Town (UCT), particularly in relation to the manner in which complaints against Vice-Chancellor Professor Mosa Moshabela have been handled by the University Council under the chairpersonship of Advocate Norman Arendse SC.

The latest revelations reported by the Sunday Times cannot simply be dismissed as another episode in an employment dispute between the Vice-Chancellor and Council.

According to the newspaper, former UCT executive Jeff Murugan has become the third person to dispute having lodged a complaint against Professor Moshabela, and has reportedly requested an impartial investigation into how his name became associated with such a complaint and how the matter ultimately reached Council. Murugan has indicated his willingness to testify under oath.

His account follows that of former UCT staff member Wilna Venter, who has similarly denied lodging a complaint attributed to her, as well as UCT academic Zamambo Mkhize, who has stated under oath that she never complained about the Vice-Chancellor in relation to the so-called Forest Hill incident.

These are no longer peripheral concerns.

They go to the very heart of the integrity of UCT's governance processes and raise profound questions about how information presented to Council was sourced, verified and relied upon.

Public Interest SA accepts that Council has both a right and a duty to investigate credible allegations against any university office-bearer, including a Vice-Chancellor. Institutional accountability cannot be sacrificed merely because allegations concern a senior executive.

But that duty carries an equally important obligation: allegations must be properly verified, affected persons must be treated fairly, governance processes must withstand scrutiny, and Council must satisfy itself that the information upon which it acts is reliable.

What is now emerging raises legitimate questions about whether those elementary governance standards were met.

It is particularly troubling that Council proceeded to adopt resolutions concerning Professor Moshabela after an investigation into 34 complaints, despite ultimately deciding not to institute disciplinary proceedings against him. Four of those resolutions are now the subject of litigation and their implementation has subsequently been suspended by Council.

Against this background, Advocate Arendse's leadership of Council must come under scrutiny.

As Chairperson, he bears an institutional responsibility for ensuring that Council exercises its considerable powers lawfully, rationally, fairly and on the basis of properly tested information. This does not mean that he personally created or misrepresented any complaint. There is presently no basis upon which Public Interest SA makes such an allegation.

However, leadership accountability cannot disappear behind collective decision-making.

The question that must be answered is straightforward: how could matters apparently attributed to identifiable individuals reach the highest governing structure of one of Africa's foremost universities when some of those very individuals now say that they never lodged the complaints attributed to them?

That question cannot be answered by invoking confidentiality or pending litigation indefinitely.

Nor should the principle of sub judice become a convenient governance shield against legitimate questions about institutional processes. The High Court will determine the legal issues properly before it. The broader question of whether UCT's governance systems functioned with the integrity expected of a public university remains a matter of compelling public interest.

UCT has been here before.

The university emerged only recently from a bruising governance crisis that resulted in an independent investigation into its leadership and governance structures. It is therefore profoundly disappointing that an institution of UCT's stature should again find itself engulfed in controversy involving its Council and Vice-Chancellor. The lessons of the recent past appear not to have been sufficiently institutionalised.

Public Interest SA accordingly calls upon Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela to consider the appointment of an independent assessor in terms of the Higher Education Act to establish the facts surrounding the sourcing, recording, verification and presentation of the complaints and concerns involving Professor Moshabela.

We note that the Minister has reportedly engaged both Advocate Arendse and Professor Moshabela and requested a report from Council. That is an important first step, but the gravity of the emerging allegations may now require scrutiny independent of the protagonists themselves.

Such an inquiry should establish, among other things, how the disputed complaints originated; who recorded and attributed them; what verification took place before they were presented to investigators and Council; what Council knew when it adopted its resolutions; and whether the rights and reputations of all affected parties were adequately protected.

UCT is bigger than any Vice-Chancellor, Ombud, Council member or Council Chairperson.

Its reputation has been built over generations and should not be imperilled by governance failures, factional battles or processes that cannot withstand independent scrutiny.

Advocate Arendse and the UCT Council must recognise that good governance requires more than asserting that due process was followed. Where serious questions arise about the integrity of that process, accountable leadership requires that those questions be confronted openly and independently.

UCT deserves better. Its students, academics, staff, alumni and the South African public deserve answers.

ENDS