Deputy Speaker, Cope will also accept and adopt the report by the portfolio committee. I must say that, as a person from the Eastern Cape, it scares us to see an institution of this calibre under this difficult condition, hon Nkwinti. It is sad that so many bad things and other failures in this country should always be attributed to the Eastern Cape.
The collapse of Walter Sisulu University is as a result of us as government, the ANC-led government. That university alone, the former University of Transkei, Unitra, used to produce some of the best doctors and lawyers in this country. After we took over Walter Sisulu, that university is what it is. Whose problem is it? Is it Walter Sisulu University or the policies we introduce and how we operate things?
Since the Minister of Higher Education and Training, hon Blade Nzimande, took over power, more than five universities have collapsed under his regime. He has only introduced administrators to run universities. The danger with this is that we will be compromising academic freedom and institutional autonomy. The hands of the ANC-led government are more of controlling and running these universities than giving these universities the capacity to run themselves.
I am inspired by the plaque in the library of the University of Cape Town, UCT. UCT was the first university in this country which, at an early stage, rejected the apartheid government's interference in academic freedom, when it instructed UCT to enforce the removal of black students. This move by the ANC will do nothing else to universities but produce failure.
The Minister of Higher Education and Training has just lost a case at the Central University of Technology, CUT, by intervening on the basis of an anonymous letter. Today he is saying that he is going to change the law for him to have more power to intervene in universities. You must remember that these are the universities that played a role in forcing the apartheid government to enrol black students.
The Minister failed to appoint his friends at these universities. If you look at members of council ministerial representatives, you will see why there is no proper governance. He appointed his young friends in the Communist Party who have no academic qualifications and have never seen a university's door. [Applause.] Some of them do not even have a matric certificate. We can name them. Some of them do not have matric ... [Interjections.] Now they are running universities. Therefore, Minister Blade Nzimande must stop running these universities through administrators. Thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]