Complaint mechanisms are among the most important instruments of institutional accountability, but they carry their own governance burden. They exist because people must have a place to raise concerns, report misconduct, challenge inappropriate behaviour and alert an institution when something may be wrong.
No institution can afford to dismiss complaints simply because they concern a powerful person. Senior office-bearers must remain subject to scrutiny. Authority does not place anyone above accountability.
In fact, the higher the office, the more carefully accountability must be exercised. Yet the seriousness of a complaint does not suspend the seriousness of process.
This is the governance lesson emerging from the dispute between University of Cape Town Vice-Chancellor Professor Mosa Moshabela and the university’s Council.
Prof Moshabela is challenging four Council resolutions arising from a complaints-based process that reportedly involved 34 complaints, no disciplinary proceedings and certain remedial measures now subject to judicial review.
That is where the governance question becomes sharper. The issue is not whether complaints should be investigated, but whether the institution can show how they were received, recorded, attributed, tested and converted into governance action.
Complaint mechanisms must protect three things at once. They must protect those who raise concerns. They must protect the person complained against from unfairness, ambush or reputational harm without proper process. They must also protect the integrity of the institution by ensuring that decisions are based on reliable information, lawful authority and a defensible record. When any one of these is neglected, the process begins to weaken.
The reported intervention by former UCT staff member Wilna Venter adds a particularly serious dimension. She has reportedly denied making a grievance attributed to her, denied authorising anyone to complain on her behalf and called for an independent investigation into how complaints were solicited, gathered, recorded and attributed. These reports do not, on their own, determine the merits of the broader dispute. They do, however, raise a serious governance red flag.
The institution must then be able to show how the complaint was received, who recorded it, what authority existed for attributing it to that person, whether consent was properly handled and how the affected person was given a fair opportunity to respond.
This goes to the heart of institutional fairness. A complaint process depends on trust. Complainants must trust that they will be protected.
Respondents must trust that they will be treated fairly. Council members must trust that the material placed before them is accurate and complete. The wider university community must trust that the process is not being used selectively, politically, factionally or carelessly.
Once the origin or attribution of a complaint becomes contested, the institution cannot rely only on general assurances. It must be able to point to records, process, authority and reasons. Confidentiality may limit what can be said publicly, especially where courtproceedings are underway. But confidentiality cannot answer every governance question.
Confidentiality should protect the vulnerable. It should not make the process unverifiable. UCT has, quite properly, emphasised the need to protect confidentiality, respect legal proceedings and safeguard the rights of affected persons. That is important.
A university Ombud’s office, like any confidential reporting mechanism, cannot function if people fear exposure each time they raise a concern. Confidentiality encourages reporting, protects dignity and allows sensitive matters to be handled with care.
But confidentiality and fair process are not enemies. They are both part of good governance.
Confidentiality protects people, while fair process protects the legitimacy of the outcome. A person complained against must know enough of the case to answer it meaningfully before adverse action is taken. Council members do not need to violate confidentiality to govern properly, but they must know enough to satisfy themselves that the complaint process was reliable, properly authorised and procedurally fair.
This is especially important where an investigation does not lead to disciplinary proceedings but still results in decisions that affect the office-bearer.
Such decisions may be described as remedial, developmental, protective or corrective. Yet if they affect reputation, authority, performance, future treatment or public confidence, they must still rest on a fair and defensible process.
Governance should not allow consequences to travel under another name.
To its credit, UCT Council has since suspended implementation of the challenged resolutions pending the final determination of Prof Moshabela’s judicial review proceedings and has indicated its willingness to participate in mediation.
Pausing implementation is an act of institutional prudence when a governance process has become contested.
A pause creates space for records to be preserved, positions to be clarified, rights to be protected and legal questions to be tested. Mediation, properly handled, may also help an institution resolve conflict without deepening individual and institutional harm. It should not, however, be used to bury governance questions that require honest examination.
Where the integrity of a process is questioned, settlement alone cannot substitute for institutional learning.
A university council is entrusted with the stewardship of the institution. It must protect the university’s reputation, ensure accountability, oversee executive leadership and act in the best interests of the institution as a whole.
However, protecting the institution does not mean defending every process once questions arise. Sometimes the most faithful act of institutional protection is to test the institution’s own process and answer the uncomfortable questions honestly.
Complaint systems can also be misused. That uncomfortable truth must be faced without weakening the protection of genuine complainants. Internal processes can become vulnerable to factionalism, institutional politics, reputational battles, personal grievances or strategic attempts to weaken a leader.
The answer is not to make complaint mechanisms harder to access, but to govern them better. The danger is not only that complaints may be ignored. It is also that complaints may be mishandled, misattributed, exaggerated, weaponised or converted into consequences before the process has earned that authority.
This is why institutions need clear complaint protocols. They need accurate recording, proper attribution, consent where required, independence in assessment, protection against retaliation, safeguards against malicious use, fair notice to affected persons, reliable evidence management and a clear link between findings and institutional action.
Together, these form the architecture of trust.
Where councils, boards or governing bodies act on complaint processes, they must remember that they are exercising power. That power must be lawful, fair, reasoned and reviewable. It must be able to withstand scrutiny after the urgency of the moment has passed.
Institutions often speak of protecting their integrity. That language is understandable, especially when allegations involve senior leadership and public confidence is at stake. But institutional integrity is not protected by defensiveness. It is protected by process, records, fairness and the humility to accept that even accountability mechanisms require accountability.
The UCT matter is therefore larger than one university dispute. It is a reminder to all institutions that complaint mechanisms must themselves be governed. The legitimacy of a complaint process cannot rest only on the seriousness of the allegations, the seniority of the person involved or the confidence of those who commissioned the process.
It must rest on the quality of the process itself. A complaints process must be strong enough to receive uncomfortable truths and disciplined enough not to create new injustice in the name of accountability.
Institutions cannot demand accountability from individuals while placing their own processes beyond scrutiny. When the integrity of a complaint mechanism is questioned, governance requires records, reasons, fairness and the courage to let the process itself be tested.
A complaint process must never become the very governance failure it was created to prevent.
Nqobani Mzizi is a professional accountant, governance practitioner and academic.