Dear Editor,
The report ‘Kissoon didn’t qualify for contract‘ in SN of Feb 1 raises some new questions while leaving old ones unanswered.
The old questions are:
Why would the university allow an incompetent lecturer to remain for more than 2 decades?
How could it be a sensible financial decision to terminate a contract immediately, in effect paying a lecturer not to teach, when the council could quietly decide not to renew the contract at its legal end?
The new questions the article raises are:
Why has the council not formally cleared the air on the termination of Mr Kissoon’s contract if it is true that this, as with all other decisions was consensual?
Does consensus at council deliberations mean that the positions of the PPP members carry the day?
Having read much of the coverage relating to the de facto firing of Mr Kissoon, a reasonable conclusion is that the decision was political, and there is much to be said for Dr Henry Jeffrey’s analysis in the same issue of SN that Mr Kissoon was fired to show who has the power. I would add that the intent, besides plain malice, is to send out a warning to those who might be prepared to speak out in ways critical of the presidential party. I suggest that it is past time for the party representation type of council to be changed.
This is no way to run a university or a country.
Yours faithfully,
Karen de Souza
