UB maneuvers to fire Fako
Baboki Kayawe | Friday January 13, 2017 14:09
The Council allegedly has been instructed to calculate a strategy to show Fako the door, as higher education authorities have expressed no confidence in the direction of the University under his helm.
Subsequently, there is a fallout between Fako and the Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, Dr Alfred Madigele; who is gravely worried at the way things are going, sources have alleged.
Impeccable sources say Fako’s remarks blaming the Government for under-funding, as well as harbouring intentions to collapse the UB, are the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Bodies and Public Enterprises late 2016, Fako painted a gloomy picture saying the country’s top tertiary education institution needed at least P1 billion in urgent funding. He also accused government of bringing the institution to its knees.
Fako charged that the trends in UB financing, were an indication of “intentions to close the University”.
“This case is made strong by instant decisions to cut funding of certain programmes, as opposed to having an informed and gradual policy to reduce intake on certain programmes.
“It is a very unfortunate attitude,” he said then. These utterances are said to have ignited long-standing differences between Fako and higher education authorities. The genesis of the conflict, sources closer to developments say, were the parallel ideals the two parties had regarding the operation of the UB teaching hospital.
The Ministry wanted the hospital to design special packages in order to attract the best candidates in the world, a position Fako allegedly opposed, sources further said.
“There is a serious fallout between Fako and the Ministry at the moment. It’s so bad such that they want him to exit,” sources said.
As a result, UB Council has been asked to push him. However legal think tanks within the body have advised that the exercise be carried out cautiously to avoid possibilities of hefty litigation. “They have been told to use one of his biggest blunders,” said sources.
Recently, the UB academic staff union accused the Vice Chancellor of tempering with minutes from Council meeting. The union has repeatedly called for Fako’s head. In their latest move in December, the University of Botswana Academic and Senior Support Staff Union (UBASSSU) declared a motion of no confidence and called for Fako’s immediate dismissal.
The union demanded that the Council chairperson, attorney Parks Tafa set up a Committee of Enquiry to investigate a broad range of acts allegedly committed during Fako’s tenure. In an interview, Madigele does not believe Fako’s remarks at the Parliamentary committee had any effect in his ministry’s stance about the institution.
“As a Ministry, we are concerned about the way things are at the UB, as well as the negative perception that has been created around it,” he said. Moreover, Madigele said it is up to the leadership to ensure positive public perception of the institution, but that has not been the case. He strongly felt the need for introspection and rethinking how the University is operated, as he ran short of saying the current leader is failing.
“At the end of the day the buck stops with the leadership to ensure that the institution is perceived in positive light,” he said.
Council met on the second Friday of December, a gathering in which Madigele is on the record saying issues of leadership, management and the direction of the UB were topical.
UB public affairs department has however maintained that all is normal at the institution and “all are at work including the VC”.
Acting director of public affairs Tefo Mangope said they are not aware of the fallout and there is nothing to indicate that Fako and Madigele have a row.
“The only thing we are aware of is the petition handed to Tafa by UBASSSU over a number of issues. At the moment I don’t think there is any crisis,” he said.
“An investigation is currently ongoing as they are trying to look at the allegations and explore how valid they are,” he said without elaborating. Attempts to get a comment from Tafa since December 2016 were futile as his phone rang unanswered.