Senior managers at the University of the Western Cape seem unable to make proper decisions

SHOULD management at UWC brush up their skills?

In response to “UWC needs to seek peaceful solutions” by Brian Isaacs, September 10, although the University of the Western Cape (UWC) is celebrating its 60th anniversary, its management/ administration leaves much to be desired, as highlighted below.

Is a lack of accountability detected at UWC? After discussing the terrible state of CAMS – a refurbished building – I was shocked to hear from the director of infrastructure and engineering at UWC that despite a guarantee of R20 million for fixing building works/features in CAMS, not a single cent of it could be used as the date for its use has expired prior to the various academic departments moving into the building. I could not believe my ears.

Who was the project manager that was in charge of this multimillion-rand project? Was someone held accountable for this loss to the university?

I also wonder whether the minister of higher education and training was at all aware of this debacle? After all, did this ministry not co-fund the building to the tune of hundreds of millions? How could UWC have allowed this to happen? Are their project managers not qualified and competent?

A matter was escalated to the executive director of human resources at UWC. He replied that he will revert to me in due course.

It is now almost 90 days since his acknowledgement of my email, and I have still not received his response. Is this proof of the inability of senior managers at UWC to respond to matters professionally? Should UWC not follow the example of UCT and appoint an independent ombudsman to resolve such matters?

Have you ever heard of a department at a university that had to operate without a capital expenditure (CaPeX) budget? Well, according to the HoD of computer science his department had no CaPeX budget and could not replace a problematic laptop that was too costly to fix.

This, despite pointing out to the HoD that a laptop to a computer science lecturer is an important tool; just as important as a spade is to a gardener. An untenable situation indeed. Is this situation acceptable based on the alleged millions spent on lost court cases as reported by

Brian Isaacs?

An HoD at UWC dipped into funds earmarked for lecture relief to appoint a first-year tutor. Tutoring is a critical component of the delivery of any first-year programming course and the department should have budgeted for this. A plea for reimbursement to the dean of the faculty was misinterpreted as a request for additional lecture relief and not reimbursed. Is this a case of departments not being funded properly? And of senior managers being unable to make proper decisions?