Nakusera recounts ‘challenging’ NUST tenure

Former Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) council chairperson Florette Nakusera, who vacated her seat under a cloud of controversy last week, says the institution faces mayhem if critical governance shortcomings are not addressed.

She also warned that harmony between council and management members will not be attained if both parties do not adhere to the regulations that govern the institution.

The Nakusera-led council’s term came to an end last Friday amid fierce bickering between council members over an array of governance-related issues at the country’s second-largest tertiary institution.

In her exit report submitted to higher education minister Dr Itah Kandjii-Murangi, Nakusera said the separation of roles between management and council must be clearly outlined to avoid “institutional mayhem”.

“It highlights salient features that are key in driving institutional governance imperatives and issues to be dealt with by the incoming council. That is why its content is based on the status report of the university and on key council resolutions, which are duly recorded.

“The university therefore ensured through those documents that there is a clear delineation between council responsibilities and that of management,” it read.

Criticism

Nakusera, a career banker at the country’s central bank, has in recent weeks faced criticism from some of her fellow council members as well as NUST staffers, who accused her of not doing enough to hold the university’s management accountable.

In fact, less than a month before the council’s term expired, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) wrote to council, requesting it to appoint a suitable entity to conduct a forensic probe into claims of corruption, maladministration, nepotism and mismanagement levelled against NUST vice-chancellor Dr Erold Naomab.

Nakusera was one of the council members who was of the view that it would be best if the incoming council dealt with the matter instead of the outgoing one.

This despite several council members unsuccessfully mounting a last-minute challenge to force Nakusera to sanction the probe.

At one point, Nakusera was also accused of protecting Naomab.

“Council cannot break the same rules that it put in place to govern the institution. If council encroaches on the operational issues, the leadership of the university will be disempowered to take certain decisions and council will not be able to hold the management accountable if it over-reaches on the powers that the council delegated to the management. That will be against good governance principles,” she said when contacted to expound on the matter yesterday.

Term extension

Asked whether she thought there were attempts to undermine her position as chairperson of the council, Nakusera said: “I cannot say always - we had a good working relationship and we had our differences. It is more in terms of recent developments that I have pointed [out] some time ago that there were such issues”.

She added: “Unfortunately, it came to [light] in the past two months when an illegal meeting was called while we were at the graduation. I took it up with members and pointed out it was not legally constituted”.

Without providing any names, she said some council members wanted her to request a two-month term extension from Kandjii-Murangi.

“I said I will not support it because it is not healthy for the institution. The institution is bigger than all of us; it should always be in the best interest of the institution when you have infighting between council and management and therefore I said I am not going to support such an extension of council,” she said.

Media leakages

Nakusera further expressed disappointment over her council members’ inability to keep confidential information to themselves.

“The council resolved to institute an inquiry into the leakage of confidential information and documents to the media or the public domain. The chief legal adviser and the registrar must devise mechanisms to curtail leakages of council’s confidential information,” she said.

She also highlighted that the council was not accorded sufficient time for effective change management, resulting in unease and anxiety among certain staff members.

“Among other challenges encountered by council in the execution of its mandate, particularly given a relatively short [three-year] turnaround time, is ample time to allow for effective change management. The consequential effect of this was that there was some uneasiness and anxiety among some staff members, a variable that requires an expedited and deliberate approach to resolve,” she said.