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A retired lecturer is not letting go of his nasty dispute with the University of Fort Hare over allegations of fraud.
While the university says the dispute has been settled, Mike Earl-Taylor denies this and has taken the matter forward.
The 71-year-old has now filed a complaint to Fort Hare’s administrator, professor Loyiso Nongxa, to investigate the allegations that vice-chancellor professor Sakhela Buhlungu failed to discipline the head of the criminology department, Tshimangadzo Magadze for removing his [Earl-Taylor] name as a supervisor of a master’s student thesis.
He said Magadze instead put his name down as a supervisor.
Nongxa was appointed by Minister of Higher Education Naledi Pandor after she dissolved Fort Hare’s council, citing severe divisions, which affected governance.
Earl-Taylor, who spent 10 years lecturing in the university’s department of criminology, told City Press that he discovered this shortly after he retired from Fort Hare in December 2017.
As a result of Magadze’s doing, Earl-Taylor alleged he lost benefits to which he was entitled.
Magadze, following an internal investigation by the university, allegedly confessed in an internal memo dated October last year – seen by City Press –and addressed to Fort Hare’s faculty of human sciences dean that he had removed Earl-Taylor’s name as supervisor and replaced it with his own, but said this was an “error”.
Nongxa confirmed that he had received Earl-Taylor’s submission.
He said he advised Earl-Taylor that, in his view, his complaint fell under academic dishonesty which was the responsibility of the university management.
“In general a university would have a policy on plagiarism as well as established procedures on how these are dealt with. I have been assigned the responsibilities of the council of the university,” Nongxa said.
Fort Hare spokesperson Tandi Mapukata said the university became aware of the “error” committed by Magadze in May last year and by July last year this had been corrected by reinserting Earl-Taylor’s name in the student’s dissertation as the only supervisor in both the bound and electronic versions.
“The situation came about when the dissertation of a student who was initially supervised by Earl-Taylor needed extensive supervision after Earl-Taylor had left the university on retirement. Magadze took over supervision, but due to inexperience, failed to register Earl-Taylor and himself as co-supervisors. Upon thorough investigation, the university’s legal department concluded that there was no malicious intent on the part of Magadze. The error happened as a result of his inexperience as a first-time supervisor. Due internal processes were followed in handling the case,” Mapukata said, adding that Earl-Taylor was fully aware of this as was the department and other stakeholders to whom he had reported the matter. Mapukata said Earl-Taylor was paid his supervision incentive.
“It is unfortunate that Earl-Taylor continues to lay nefarious accusations against Buhlungu and the university. His statements are defamatory to the reputation and the good name of the vice-chancellor and the university.
“The legal department has been instructed to take legal action against Earl-Taylor to put an end to this matter, as all communication between our legal team and his attorneys has not yielded any fruitful results,” she said.
Read: Fort Hare: Pandor faces challenge over appointment of administrator
However, Earl-Taylor denied that “the so-called error” was corrected or a retraction published, adding that he would welcome a move by Fort Hare to take the matter to court.
He alleged he received only R9 000 for his work after he had laid criminal charges of fraud against Magadze at Bathurst police station in May last year.
A supervisor of a master’s thesis, he said, earns R20 000, and R60 000 for a doctoral dissertation.
Magadze had not responded by the time of writing.
However, in the internal memo he signed in October last year, Magadze admitted to the faculty of social science and the humanities dean to have made an “error” of not inserting Earl-Taylor’s name.
Magadze wrote the internal memo after Earl-Taylor filed a complaint against the university to Pandor in August last year.
Earl-Taylor had sought legal advice and approached the Grahamstown-based Legal Research Centre director Sarah Sephton, who instructed local attorney Mark Nettleton to act on Earl-Taylor’s behalf pro bono.
Nettleton issued a letter of demand to Fort Hare in May last year for a payment of R100 000 to Earl-Taylor for damages. Fort Hare did not respond.
Pandor was requested by Earl-Taylor to appoint an external investigator or commission of inquiry, basing his reasons on Fort Hare’s “cover-up” of the saga and saying the university could not be trusted to conduct its own probe.
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