Raymond Zondo and Minister of Public Service and Administration, Ms Noxolo Kiviet during swearing-in ceremony of new members of the National Executive.The ceremony will take place at Tuynhuys in Cape Town. photographer Ayanda Ndamane / African News Agency (ANA)
What an irony that the newly appointed Minister of Public Service and Administration Noxolo Kiviet – where she has also served as deputy – and is charged with keeping the civil service on the straight and narrow – is being accused of fraud in gaining admission to Fort Hare University.
But beyond this – if indeed she is found guilty of this malfeasance – Fort Hare University and by extension other higher education institutions, should tighten their processes.
In this case, it is unbelievable that Fort Hare did not pick up this anomaly.
At any higher education institution, there are multi-layered processes of quality assurance.
Regarding student admissions, applicants’ documents go to an administrator who must convince themselves that all is in order; the second tier is where the assessment is done (department of applicant) and lastly the faculty/school where the dean or an equivalent makes sure that everything is in order.
It is thus impossible that crooked applicants can get through such a system undetected.
Even if they can try to bribe their way through – somebody in the structure is bound to pick this trickery as it is impossible to bribe a whole structure.
The same applies to the government. Surely the Presidency or even President Cyril Ramaphosa should have known that there was something amiss in the background of Ms Kiviet.
Are ministers not thoroughly vetted or the president depends on that he knows/trusts them?
If the latter is the case, it is very dangerous thinking-especially for people who occupy such critical government positions – because you may ‘know/trust’ a person, but that individual may have been turned along the way and has become a serious security risk, not only to the government but the country.
Dr Thabisi Hoeane Pretoria