NEHAWU EASTERN CAPE STATEMENT ON THE ONGOING MAYHEM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FORT HARE

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union [NEHAWU] in the Eastern Cape notes the arrests at the University of Fort Hare that happened over the Easter Weekend involving the officials and service providers of the institution.

As NEHAWU, we welcome the ongoing investigations and the recent breakthrough in terms of the arrests of the 15 individuals alleged to be behind the killings and the corruption taking place in the institution. As a union that is organizing in the institution, we are shocked that some of the service providers that appeared in Dimbaza Magistrate Court were familiar faces that we have met during disciplinary processes involving our members. It has been our long observation that the hiring of the law firms from outside the province is not an isolated incidence. We believe that the law firms were procured specifically to annihilate the union in the university. This is done to ensure that our voice is silenced for good in the institution as we are critical of the shenanigans taking place there.

Again, we have observed that employees who are seen to be vocal and critical to the current regime have been targeted and all of them have been subjected to the harshest treatment in order to send a message against anyone who is critical of the Vice-Chancellor [VC] and his management. We view the current developments in relation to the arrests of the 15 individuals as a tip of the iceberg, more needs to be done in unearthing the root cause of the problem. It can't be an incident of history that the service providers that were illegally hired to butcher and silence employees are now behind bars.

The university management must explain to the public how is it possible that the service providers that were hired during the tenure of the current VC are now implicated in the wrong doing within the institution? Specifically, the VC must answer why the employees that are working close to his office together with the service providers are behind bars? How is it possible that he can hire and trust employees and service providers that are part of the scheme to intimidate their opponents by whipping them out of the institution or on earth?

Lastly, we call on law enforcement to leave no stone unturned in their investigations on the corruption and killings at the University of Fort Hare.

END

Issued by NEHAWU Eastern Cape Secretariat

For more information, please contact: Mlu Ncapayi (Eastern Cape Provincial Secretary) at 063 685 1923 or email [email protected]