Mzuni Council threatens to dismiss VC’s post applicant
Some prominent members of the embattled Mzuzu University Council led by its Chairperson Professor Brown Chimphamba and Harrison Kaluwa met Mzuni management where among other things they wanted Associate Professor Golden Msilimba dismissed for ‘bringing the Council into public scandal’.
Sources told Nyasa Times that the Council is irked by Msilimba’s court battle with the Council to seek justice regarding the selection of Mzuni’s Vice Chancellor.
According to a legal expert, who preferred anonymity, the Council’s discussion of a matter that is in the hands of the court, if proven constitute is sub judice and is an offence.
Msilimba is seeking relief from the High Court in the form of a judicial review to force Mzuni to pick the statutory process of the selection of VC from where it was left to its finality.
In a notice of application for judicial review filed at the Court, he argues that the decision of Mzuni in delegating the powers to decide on re-advertisement of the post of VC to the President is a clear abdication of duty of Mzuni under the Mzuzu University Act.
Msilimba wants to the Court to declare that Mzuni’s decisions be declared unlawful, unconstitutional, unreasonable and procedurally improper.
The Council headed by Professor Brown Chimphamba deliberately lied to Head of State Joyce Banda, who is also Mzuni Chancellor, that the statutory process the Council used to identify the Vice Chancellor was faulty because no candidate was successful.
But interview results conducted on 28th March, 2012, indicates that a clear winner emerged in the name of Msilimba and there is documentary evidence that the Council unanimously agreed to endorse Msilimba to the President as the new Vice Chancellor.
Mzuni acting registrar Yorum Ngwira on Tuesday expressed ignorance of any meeting that may have discussed that issue.
But sources said the issue of Msilimba’s dismissal was brought during the impromptu Council meeting but was not concluded.
“He is receiving threats and intimidation because of a media blitz the issue has generated so that he withdrew the Court action which is scheduled for March 6, 2013,” Nyasa Times source said.
Last week the Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC) asked Mrs. Banda to immediately reconstitute the Council saying the path of policy direction that it is taking, is by all measure vindicative of its failure to practice good governance.
“Why should the Council be so mean as to allow the university to run without the Vice Chancellor for three years? Mzuni Council, amidst all the developments, can only be said to have lost direction which unfortunately compromises the provision of quality education at the institution,” CSEC Executive Director Benedict Kondowe said.
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