Professor Ihron Rensburg has been appointed as Unisa’s administrator.

• Professor Ihron Rensburg has been appointed as Unisa’s administrator.
• He will take over the role, powers, functions and duties of the council for two years.
• At the end of his term, Rensburg must submit a report to the minister.

Unisa has approached the courts on an urgent basis to challenge Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande’s appointment of Professor Ihron Rensburg as the administrator of the institution after the minister dissolved the Unisa council.

Nzimande announced that Rensburg would take over for 24 months.

An entry in the Government Gazette, dated 27 October, reads: “I, Dr BE Nzimande, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, in accordance with Section 49B of the Higher Education Act (Act 101 of 1997, as amended) hereby appoint an administrator for the University of South Africa.”

Unisa said in a statement on Saturday: “The university remains firm on the view that the minister’s announcement is premature and in contempt of the court order of 6 October 2023 by [Judge Harshila] Kooverjie that interdicted him from placing the university under administration.

“The same order reaffirms the earlier order of [Judge Leicester] Adams of 24 August 2023, which ordered the minister not to take any decision pending the finalisation of the interdict application by Unisa, and the minister’s undertaking not to take any decision until the application to review and set aside the independent assessor’s report would have been heard.”

Unisa said the matter had not been finalised and was still before the court. 

“The university is also of the strong view that the announcement of the minister’s decision at the time when our students are in the middle of examinations is ill-timed and insensitive.

“The university has now approached the court on an urgent basis to challenge the minister’s announcement of 27 October 2023.”

Rensburg will report to the minister or any delegated officials in the Department of Higher Education and Training on a biannual basis and must, at the end of his term, submit a written report to the minister within 30 days.

He will take over the role, powers, functions and duties of the council and will exercise the powers, perform the functions and execute the duties of the council that relate to governance.

READ | Blade Nzimande issues Unisa with notice of intention to place it under administration

Earlier this month, Nzimande sought to put Unisa under administration but was interdicted.

The minister’s decision followed the recommendations of independent assessor Professor Themba Mosia and the report of a ministerial task team headed by Vincent Maphai. 

Mosia’s report found financial and other maladministration of a serious nature that undermined the university’s effective functioning.

Nzimande’s spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi said in a statement that the minister had carefully considered Mosia’s findings and recommendations as well as responses from the council and other stakeholders.

“The assessor’s report followed the report of the ministerial task team of August 2021 into the review of Unisa, which also raised serious concerns about the state of administration and governance as well as the quality and sustainability of Unisa as one of South Africa’s most important universities.

“There are strong overlaps and areas of strategic convergence in the findings and recommendations of the reports of the independent assessor and the ministerial task team,” Mnisi said.

He added that the ministerial task team concluded that, based on the evidence presented to it, Unisa suffers chronic management failures in many of its key support systems and the council was identified as the root cause of the university’s problems.

Rensburg is an accomplished academic and university leader who previously served as vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) between 2006 and 2017.

He was also the administrator of the Vaal University of Technology in 2021.

He held a pioneering role in the merger and transformation of the former Rand Afrikaans University, Technikon Witwatersrand and the Soweto and East Rand campuses of Vista University into UJ in the early 2000s, and its massive expansion on the higher education landscape.

Rensburg was also a commissioner of South Africa’s first National Planning Commission, where he chaired the working group on Social Protection and Human Capabilities.

Mnisi said that, in 2022, Unisa failed to comply with the submission requirements of its 2021 annual report.

The university’s external auditors resigned at the end of 2022 having deemed its risk profile too high for their risk tolerance limit.

“This is completely unacceptable and intolerable for a public higher education, especially one presiding over materially significant public resources. As a result, Unisa had to appoint a new external auditor for 2022-2026 in March 2023,” Mnisi said.

The Auditor-General expressed serious concerns with the appointment of the new auditors and Unisa’s failure to put measures in place to deal with the concerns of the previous auditor.

“The university failed to submit its 2022 annual report as per the reporting regulations for the second consecutive year,” said Mnisi.