University of Fort Hare (UFH) employees are believed to be among the suspects arrested in connection with the murder of two of the institution’s staff members.
University spokesperson JP Roodt said on Monday that warrants for the arrest of the suspects were executed over the Easter weekend, and “we believe it also includes UFH employees”.
UFH vice-chancellor, professor Sakhela Buhlungu’s bodyguard, Mboneli Vesele, was shot dead on January 6 about 15m from the gate of Buhlungu’s residence in Alice, Eastern Cape.
The university’s fleet manager, Petrus Roets, was killed in a suspected hit in March last year near a set of traffic lights at the Gonubie off-ramp while driving home from work.
Shots were also fired at the house of the deputy vice-chancellor for teaching and learning, Prof Renuka Vithal, in March last year with a bullet lodging in her fridge. A man carrying a gun was captured on CCTV footage climbing over a wall and firing three shots at the entrance to Buhlungu’s house in the same month.
This was followed by a “hit list” containing the names of 16 senior officials, mostly members of the executive management. The most senior ones had an amount of R600,000 written next to their names.
The university has been working with the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to clamp down on tender corruption, the suspicious awarding of honours degrees and mismanagement of funds at the institution.
Roodt said Buhlungu received a full briefing from the office of national police minister Bheki Cele on Monday afternoon.
“The university understands that authorities will enrol the case tomorrow at the Alice magistrate’s court.”
During a meeting with a delegation from UFH, including Buhlungu, at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Cape Town office, De Tuynhuys, on February 23, he assured the vice-chancellor there would be arrests in connection with the murders of Vesele and Roets.
Buhlungu told TimesLIVE Premium after his meeting with Ramaphosa that they would pull out all the stops to ensure the university and the town do not become “a gangster town and a gangster university”.
Buhlungu’s meeting followed an impassioned plea to the president to ensure his, the staff’s and students’ after Vesele’s assassination.
Shortly after Buhlungu’s plea to Ramaphosa in January, Cele led a delegation to UFH on January 11, which included then deputy minister of state security Zizi Kodwa and national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola.
This meeting resulted in the establishment of a multidisciplinary task team.
Last month the Sunday Times revealed that taxpayers paid millions of rand for top Eastern Cape politicians to obtain dubious postgraduate qualifications at UFH.
According to the newspaper, the SIU found that the Eastern Cape legislature paid highly inflated fees for the politicians and officials it registered to take a public administration course not accredited with or recognised by the South African Qualifications Authority.
The programme was part of an alleged scam run by disgraced professor Edwin Ijeoma, who headed the public administration faculty at the university’s Bhisho satellite campus, where the legislature is situated.
Ijeoma, who was arrested and charged in 2021 after Fort Hare accused him of fraud, apparently diverted more than R4m of taxpayers’ money that should have gone to UFH.
TimesLIVE
Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.