Fees Must Fall movement vows UCT shutdown

[caption id="attachment_170353" align="aligncenter" width="630"] University of Cape Town. File photo
Picture: via Twitter[/caption]

The Fees Must Fall movement has announced that there will be a complete campus shutdown at the University of Cape Town on Wednesday in protest against the exploitation of in-sourced workers and the academic and financial exclusion of students.

Students gathered for a mass meeting at UCT on Monday led by Fees Must Fall activist Athabile Nonxuba‚ who said any of UCT vice-chancellor Max Price’s “spies” should inform him that a shutdown will go ahead.

It is alleged that students received an email last week from the university’s student representative council that UCT will remove students who have yet to settle debts from residences.

A Fees Must Fall activist who attended the meeting said the university was acting unfairly towards these students.

“It’s about all the issues that UCT is avoiding. They are delaying and don’t want to solve problems. There have been unsuccessful negotiations and meetings. We’ve had enough‚” she said.

Based on the number of people at Monday’s meeting a large number of people‚ including students and workers‚ would take part in the protest‚ she added.

UCT spokesman Elijah Moholola confirmed that the protest motives were centred mainly on continuous negotiations regarding the conditions in which in-sourced workers are employed.

“The UCT executive has worked tirelessly over the past year to address issues and to ensure the smooth in-sourcing of previously outsourced workers at UCT‚” he said.

“The executive is still in negotiations with unions and workers on some issues and will honour this ongoing commitment to resolve any issues that may arise.”

He said 23 students were on a “grace period” following financial exclusion‚ saying the fees had been outstanding for 15 months.

“The UCT executive has honoured the commitment towards ensuring that all academically and financially eligible students are not excluded due to historic debt‚” he said.

Moholola was unable to comment on the extent to which classes would be disrupted‚ nor could he suggest what measures UCT would put in place to manage the protest.

The protest is scheduled to start at 6am.

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