North West premier, Supra Mahumapelo addressing NWU students

BY REGINALD KANYANE

North-West Premier Supra Mahumapelo has stepped in to try and find amicable solution to the student strike at the Mafikeng Campus of the North-West University.

Mahumapelo dedicated most part of the day meeting with students and the university management to try and bring the situation to ordinariness.

He said that the provincial government cannot allow the situation to spiral out of control.

“As government we don’t have control over the university but we cannot allow the situation to deteriorate. My request to you is that, be flexible as the management of the university. After what happened at Marikana, we cannot afford another situation like that.

“We need stability in our province and that stability is not going to fall from heaven, we must engage amongst ourselves as adults and resolve this problem amicably,” Mahumapelo told the University Management at a meeting yesterday.

Mahumapelo, who had earlier in the day addressed students at the main gate of the Mafikeng campus and appealed for calm, implored the university to engage with students and find a win-win solution.

He emphasised that government was not dictating to the university but simply advising.

However, the university management said the students did not appear to be dealing with the matter in good faith because they had failed to put their concerns in writing in spite the request to do so.

Vice Chancellor Professor Dan Kgwadi said it would be irresponsible for the university to allow the students back on campus under the current circumstances, after the events of the past few days.

“Our approach has been to take the campus from the students and establish authority. We had a meeting with parents to explain the situation. We felt that the best thing was to close the campus so that sanity must prevail. There is damage that has happened in the campus and it is still very risky. We had to clear the campus for now so that we can go in and assess how much needs to be fixed before the students are allowed back on campus. The issue is broader than what we see,” said Kgwadi.

Professor Kgwadi said an enormous quantity of petrol and a large number of petrol bombs were found on campus, after the university managed to get students out of campus. He said if the university did not react on time, it was possible that the university would have been burned down.

But Secretary-General of the Student Representative Council, Paseka Molefe said the students were ready to sit with management and discuss their issues.

After several deliberations the University felt that they needed to be afforded the time and opportunity to deal with the situation, a move which the Premier respected in view of the autonomy of the university.

The students have been on strike for weeks as part of the “Fees Must Fall Campaign” that has seen several student protests across a number of South African universities.

-TDN

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