On 11 February UP released a statement in response to the City of Tshwane’s attempt to cut off the electricity supply to Prinshof Campus. The statement reaffirmed the university’s status as “a good corporate citizen”, denouncing the city’s actions. The statement cited the reliance on research equipment, scientific experiments and data centres which could have been compromised by the potential power interruption, deeming the action as a “political grandstanding”.

The university statement was released after the City of Tshwane sent out a tweet expressing their decision to cut off the electricity supply to Prinshof Campus, citing that the university owed them R34 million.

A later tweet by the university acknowledged the outstanding amount had been paid by the university. UP acknowledged that they made the immediate payment to prevent an interruption and had registered a dispute with the council a year ago, adding that they “committed to pay the alleged outstanding amount pending the outcome of the dispute”. It was further stated that UP did not receive a prior notice or a detailed account, alleging that attempts to engage with the city had been ignored.

Following these events, on 14 February, the UP SRC sent out a statement referring to the university’s payment of outstanding debt to the City of Tshwane citing that “given this presentation and portrayal of the aforementioned information, the UP SRC takes great offence to the excuses provided by the institution regarding financial aid, historical debt, the waivering of registration fees and the operational budget and study aid fund of R617 000 of the SRC”. Citing these events, the statement reiterated that the university has a well managed reserve.

The SRC called for four main demands in their communication, namely:

• the waivering of all undergraduate and postgraduate registration fees
• an increase in the budget allocated to the SRC study aid fund and operational budget
• a call for the university to put in a plan of action to address historical debt
• a call for the UP financial aid to accommodate a larger number of students

This is a developing story. Follow @PDBYMedia for further updates.

Images: Twitter.com.