Johannesburg - The general secretary of the National Association of South African Workers (Nasa), Mpho Morolane, has unleashed his lawyers on Unisa vice-chancellor and principal, Professor Puleng LenkaBula, who is reported to have verbally abused him and called him a rapist.
The Star has seen a letter from Morolane’s lawyers, England Slabbert Attorneys, who accuse LenkaBula of making defamatory statements against their client.
The letter addressed to LenkaBula is dated September 22 and is titled “Defamatory statements and/or intimidatory and/or harassing statements made against Mr Mpho Morolane, general secretary of Nasa, on social media”.
“It has come to our client’s attention that you have recently made defamatory and/or intimidatory and/or harassing statements regarding our client. These statements were made over social media, being WhatsApp messages on August 19, 2023,” the lawyers said.
It is reported that the VC allegedly called Morolane a “rapist and a wolf in sheep skin”. It is not clear what might have caused the feud between the two.
Among the defamatory statements alleged to have been made were: “You will be happy that you are a wolf (sic) in sheep skin, violently assaulting, raping, harming women, and digging their graves as you rejoice ... Your ongoing extortions of money, favours, and silencing women may make you feel strong ... You know people who claim you have raped them or assaulted them.”
The lawyers further accuse LenkaBula of failing to respond to the letter written by Nasa to address their concerns. The firm adds that their client’s reputation has suffered damage due to the statements. “Your statements are meant to deliberately impugn the integrity and good name of the client ... Your allegations are vexatious, misplaced, spurious and untrue,” the lawyers said.
According to the letter, LenkaBula and Morolane have worked together in the past. “We are furthermore instructed that your making these allegations is done deliberately to exact revenge on our client due to dealings between the two of you in the past. Nasa workers on August 21, 2023, were recently granted organisational rights within Unisa, which rights you are avoiding and attempting to prevent from being exercised. You are accordingly accusing our client, as you have done, in an attempt to distract workers from insisting on the implementation of the rights granted to Nasa to represent them,” reads the letter in part.
Morolane, though his lawyers, gave the VC until the close of business yesterday to apologise and withdraw her statements. They want her to make a public statement on social media platforms.
“In light of the above, we hereby demand that you retract statements made against our client ... Apologise to our client and retract the statements on account of being untrue and defamatory to our client. The public statement must be shared by you on all your social media accounts, including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The demand in paragraph 14 is to be given effect by the close of business on Wednesday,” the lawyers said.
Efforts to get comment from the university and the VC were unsuccessful by the time of publication. She had not complied with the call for a retraction.
The Star