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The Higher Education Transformation Network (HETN), acting on behalf of its alumni membership, hereby condemns the
resistance by higher education Administrators against the implementation of the Higher Education Act No 101 of 1997 and in
particular the centralization of higher education admission quotas. We condemn the resistance by higher education
administrators to implement state policies under the guides of institutional autonomy.

We specifically condemn the arrogance displayed by the Central University of Technology (CUT)’s Council in initiating legal
action against the Minister of Higher Education, Dr Blade Ndzimande as well as similar official statements submission made by
the University of Pretoria management to amongst others, the Parliamentary Committee on Higher Education.
The HETN welcomes the interventions made by the Minister of Higher Education, Dr Blade Ndzimande into the Vaal University
of Technology (VUT), University of Kwazulu Natal, Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) and Walter Sisulu University (WSU)
to address fraud and identified lapses in corporate governance at the institutions. The HETN supports Ministerial intervention in
higher educational institutions and believe that such interventions should not only take place in the case of financial
mismanagement or loss of statutory oversight only.

The HETN believes that the Minister of Higher Education needs to also intervene in former Afrikaans only institutions such as the
University of Pretoria and North West University where transformation is not being implemented or is being improperly
implemented. Universities can no longer hide corruption, mismanagement and racism under the veil of institutional autonomy.
We believe that institutions of higher learning should be autonomous but this does not mean that they are not accountable to the
nation that establishes and funds them.

Current higher education leadership is characterized by an oligarchy of academia, as represented by Higher Education South
Africa (HESA), who are not receptive to new inputs and are not committed to implementing the ethos of free higher education as
envisaged by the Education White Paper of 1997 and the South African Constitution. Less than 8 months ago however, the
same oligarchy of academics as represented by HESA have been pleading to the same Parliamentary Committee for an
increase in higher education subsidies by government.

Institutional autonomy cannot be utilized by higher education Administrators as an excuse against state intervention. This is
particularly the case for institutions such as the University of Pretoria which have since the dawn of apartheid, amassed immense
financial reserves and is in the process of illegally privatizing over R45 million rands from historic state funding into a myriad of
unregulated private company investments which has ballooned the total salary bill of its University Council, Executive Directors
and Directors of subsidiaries from R49 million in 2008 to R82 million rands in 2009 alone.

The University of Pretoria management is guilty of:-
• Wholesale maintenance of racially-based salary bands for black and white staff
• Tolerance for and facilitating of the hijacking of university structures and resources by rightwing political groupings such as
Afriforum
• Illegal prolonging of contractual probation periods and inequities in the promotion of black staff
• Gross non-representation of black graduates on the Alumni Board
• Mismanagement of the merger process with Vista University Mamelodi campus
• Diversion and privatization of state financial resources and flouting of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA)
regulations
• Non-compliance with Employment Equity statutory legislation.
The HETN is in the process of escalating the unholy alliance between Afriforum and the University of Pretoria to the Equality
Court for redress. We further call for the intervention of the Minister of Higher Education into the affairs of the University of
Pretoria.