When is plagiarism not plagiarism?

Third case of policy-related plagiarism uncovered by Dispatch in two weeks

Nelson Mandela University adjunct professor Christian Adendorff lifted chunks of text for a 2017 Ngqushwa Municipality policy document from the Namibian government — despite getting paid R600,000 to write it.

The Namibian text was written 16 years ago.

Adendorff insists it is “standard practice” to copy text for municipalities without attribution and that this is not tantamount to plagiarism.

This is the third EC policy-related plagiarism scandal uncovered by the Dispatch in two weeks — in what a political scientist describes as a sign of a lack of intellectual capacity.

Premier Oscar Mabuyane authorised a telecommunications policy document copied from a 2015 presentation by the Irish government.

Adendorff won the tender to pen the Ngqushwa Municipality document titled “Envisioning Ngqushwa 2057: A 40-year Prognosis Towards Prosperity”. Former Ngqushwa mayor Mnikelo Siwisa’s foreword is also copied verbatim from the Namibian document.

Ngqushwa spokesperson Ncumisa Cakwe and Adendorff confirmed he was paid R600,000 for the document.

This week the Dispatch reported that Amathole ’ s policy framework, adopted in 2019 and envisioning a 50-plus-year plan, was almost a carbon copy of a 2017 US government report.

ADM municipal manager Thandekile Mnyimba headed Ngqushwa’s administration at the time when the document with its lifted Namibian policy was drawn up. His executive summary in the Ngqushwa policy framework is also copied from the Namibian document.

After initially denying the Amathole document was plagiarised, Mnyimba did an about-turn on Thursday when the Dispatch inquired about the Ngqushwa document, writing two letters in quick succession to Adendorff seeking an explanation.

Adendorff is a renowned academic who was hired by president Cyril Ramaphosa in a bid to strengthen the country’s Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In the 2004 document, Namibia’s then-national planning commissioner, Immanuel Ngatjizeko, wrote: “A long-term vision is a unifying concept for a nation. Everyone would like to have access to good education for their children, good and accessible healthcare, a clean and productive environment, an efficient and profitable economy that supports full and rewarding employment, low levels of crime, a just and tolerant society and meaningful transparent governance. Such vision also offers the nation an ideal to work towards.

“Furthermore, it sets key targets and identifies some approaches that could be applied. The eight thematic reports which feed into this long-term vision are:

● Inequality and social welfare;

● Peace and political stability;

● Human resources development and institutional capacity building;

● Macroeconomic issues;

● Population, health and development;

● Namibia’ s natural resources sector; and

● Knowledge, information and technology.

Mnyimba ’ s executive summary was strikingly similar, replacing only numbers with typographical bullets and substituting “Namibia ” for “Mnquma” and other words, such as national, to fit the local context. Mnyimba told the Dispatch Adendorff wrote the document.

While the Ngqushwa policy document references other websites, it does not attribute the Namibian policy paper.

Adendorff told the Dispatch: “The document is not plagiarised. We used a particular document as a precedent and did not submit comprehensive footnotes or references in it as it is not academic writings, nor did the municipality expressly or impliedly [sic] seek full referencing.

“It was and remains standard practice, as we understand it, that municipalities, unlike academic writings done, do not require comprehensive footnotes and or references for planning documents or other writings. If the Ngqushwa municipality requested that we include [references], we would have done so. ”

Will he be paying back the money? He said: “There is no basis to do so, as the municipality is happy with the document and has been implementing the strategy as contained in the document.”

NMU spokesperson Zandile Mbabela said the allegations of alleged plagiarism “are concerning ” and the university had asked Adendorff to respond.

Political scientist Dr Somadoda Fikeni said: “Universities seem not to have survived mergers and internal stakeholder protracted battles, hence the general weaknesses in these knowledge institutions. Lack of consequence management is because of a patronage system which has fossilised as a patrimonial system.”

Ramaphosa’s acting spokesperson Tyrone Seale asked the Dispatch to send him more evidence the documents were plagiarised; this was done, but at the time of writing he had not responded.

If the Ngqushwa municipality requested that we include [references], we would have done so