Who and what is AfriForum?

AfriForum is an Afrikaans civil rights organisation that protects the rights of minority groups at national as well as provincial level, and anyone who can identify with AfriForum’s principles and objectives may join the organisation. AfriForum’s community plan focuses on mobilising communities to thus take control of their own streets and neighbourhoods again. AfriForum ensures that your constitutional and civil rights are recognised and protected at national level.

Wie en wat is AfriForum?

AfriForum is ’n Afrikaanse burgerregteorganisasie wat die regte van minderheidsgroepe op sowel nasionale as provinsiale vlak beskerm, en enigiemand wat met AfriForum se beginsels en doelstellings kan identifiseer, mag by die organisasie aansluit. AfriForum se gemeenskapsplan fokus daarop om gemeenskappe te mobiliseer om só weer beheer terug te neem oor hul eie strate en woonbuurtes. AfriForum verseker dat jou grondwetlike én burgerregte op nasionale vlak erken en beskerm word.

Unisa suspends another official who questioned financial irregularities

In a move indicative of a concerted effort to conceal criminality and shield the perpetrators from scrutiny, Unisa has suspended another senior manager in the institution’s finance department. The unit now represents Donald Ndlovu, Unisa’s director of expenditure and asset management, who was placed on precautionary suspension at the end of last month (April). The university accuses Ndlovu of disclosing information to a “third party”, presumably a reporter, a claim he not only denies, but is without basis.

Since April last year, the unit has represented Dr Reshma Mathura, Unisa’s Acting Vice Principal Finance, SCM & Business Enterprise and Chief Financial Officer. Despite being on suspension for more than a year, the disciplinary process is still ongoing. The unit understands that several investigations of Mathura’s conduct have cleared her of corruption allegations that she received illicit payments from students. The unit suspects she was suspended for her role in exposing corruption and cooperating in a Hawks investigation of financial malfeasance at the institution.

In a letter to Unisa senior management, Adv. Gerrie Nel, head of the unit described the steps taken against Ndlovu as an amateurish attempts to conceal financial malfeasance. “The similarities between the modus operandi with this suspension and that of Dr Mathura are striking and we infer it be a further step to silence those who question the irregular and possibly criminal conduct of management with the funds of Unisa. The efforts to silence and rid the institution of people with integrity and an understanding of their duty to manage the finances of the Institution will not succeed and will eventually be exposed,” he said.

The allegations of misconduct against Ndlovu purport to be related to the leaking of information about the University’s inexplicable expenditure of R500 000 for 10 senior Unisa officials to attend an ANC gala dinner in Cape Town last year.

Nel has asked management for more detail on this allegation. “We have developed a theory of why our client was suspended and it is not in relation to the ANC dining experience. We will share this theory with you and during any further disciplinary process once we have received the ‘evidence’ of our client’s misconduct. Kindly provide more detail and the ‘evidence’ that supported the drastic step to yet again suspend a senior official involved in managing the financial affairs of the institution,” concluded Nel.