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A senior Sol Plaatje University (SPU) official has allegedly been living in a private residence accredited for students.
A whistle-blower claims the official has been staying at the residence since 2016, while renting out his Kimberley house to a construction company that has done millions of rands of work for the university.
SPU denies that the official stays in a student residence, and says he lives in a boarding house in town.
It confirms, however, that he rents his house to Bloemfontein-based firm Qualicon Construction.
The whistle-blower made the claims to SPU’s ethics hotline, which is run by auditing firm KPMG.
He claims the official’s actions amount to conflict of interest. He linked the allegations to an internal email sent to SPU’s finance staff.
This states that SPU writes off debt incurred by students living at the privately owned residence as its own expense.
According to Qualicon’s website, the work it has done for SPU includes building the R184 million Moroka residence, the R141 million science building, R141 million teachers’ training facility, refurbishing the Tauana residence at a cost of R44 million and providing bulk services infrastructure for R41.1 million.
Qualicon managing member Kotie van Tonder said the company rents the property from the official at market-related rates.
“This rental agreement is 100% above board and we were given the assurance that he declared this interest to SPU at the time of the agreement.
He questioned the motivation behind the allegations.
“We would like to express our concern as to the motives and intentions of your informant, as they seem to be malicious.”
When the official was approached for comment, SPU special projects director Patrick Fitzgerald responded on his behalf.
Fitzgerald said the official did not live in a student residence of any kind, but in a “private boarding house which has nothing whatsoever to do with Sol Plaatje University”.
“As housing is very difficult to come by in Kimberley, from time to time other university personnel have stayed in this same boarding house.”
Fitzgerald said the official rented his house to Qualicon, had declared this to management and was granted permission to do so. There was no technical or ethical conflict of interest, he said.
KPMG was appointed to operate SPU’s ethics hotline and to protect whistle-blowers’ identities.
Fitzgerald said SPU had a budget, to which 30 organisations contributed, to settle students’ accommodation debt. This had helped 881 students with R53 million last year.
KPMG spokesperson Nqubeko Sibiya declined to comment on this specific case.
He said the tip-offs they got were forwarded to SPU, which was solely responsible for deciding what to do with the information.
