SRC DISPUTE: Project W’s Jamie Mighti claims the SRC budget is being mismanaged. Photo: Nqobile Dludla
Project W alleged this week that the SRC budget is being mismanaged by the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA). Both SRC deputy-president Shaeera Kalla and head of the Student Development and Leadership Unit (SDLU), Lamese Abrahams denied this.
Project W’s Jamie Mighti told Wits Vuvuzela there has been “no transparency” with the SRC budget allocation. According to two previous SRC treasurers, the SRC budget is supposed to be allocated and submitted to SDLU by the last week of February.
“The SRC have not even met yet to discuss it,” Jamie said. He claimed that PYA SRC members had already allocated budgets for their own portfolios during “PYA internal caucuses’”.
“They are deliberately excluding Project W SRC members,” he said, “We have been asking for three weeks now to have a meeting about the portfolio budgets but every time we schedule several SRC members deliberately don’t show up.”
Mighti also said the budget is mostly funded by student fees “so they have the right to objectivity and to see how it is being used which is not what is happening here”.
Deputy president of the SRC Shaeera Kalla said the only reason the SRC hasn’t met yet “is because we have all been busy with the One Million One Month campaign”.
“It’s just a matter of sitting down and working things out,” she said.
“There is no mismanagement of the budget. The only event it has been used for is O-Week.”
Mighti also put forward a claim that the annual vacation stipends given to SRC members were not allocated properly and the process was “corrupt”.
He said that some members of the SRC had given themselves R10 000 whereas others had received zero.
Abrahams said these claims were “inaccurate” and that there had only been “one appeal” about the SRC stipend issue “which has been dealt with accordingly”.
“This is not true. SDLU has complete oversight over both the budget and stipends,” she said, “It is checked all the time, twice or even three times over.”
“There is no action plan here. We are stuck and if the budget issue isn’t dealt with, we will have to take it to the dean or the VC,” Mighti said.
