Voting opened yesterday on two Motions of Censure brought against Sabbatical officers Tim Ngwena and Ben Humphrys.
The motions, brought to Thursday’s UGM by portering campaigner Miles Layram, accuse Humphrys and Ngwena of not doing enough to ensure that 24-hour portering returns to campus, despite the fact that they were mandated to by a previous UGM.
In his proposing speech at last week’s UGM, Layram suggested that the approach taken by Ngwena and Humphrys when negotiating with the University on the issue had not been as forceful as it could have been, with the Sabbs acting like “management spokespeople” when campaigns work is being done.
In a previous speech proposing another portering motion Layram also suggested that the Union officers had given inaccurate data to students on the subject likely cost solutions to portering issue; stating that these were just more of “Tim’s spins” before changing his approach after being asked by the chair not to refer to individuals directly.
Defending themselves, Ngwena and Humphrys told the UGM that they had “done everything they had been able to at meetings [they’d] been able to attend.”
Humphrys also asserted that plans had been put in place to get College Welfare teams to take over certain portering duties at the expense of the University and not the Union or the students themselves.
Speaking again in favour of the motion Layram asked students to “please read the motions” and to vote in favour if they agreed that the way Tim and Ben had behaved was “disappointing.”
Despite Layram’s claims that the timing of the motion is not politically motivated and has nothing to do with the ongoing YUSU elections, when speaking exclusively to Vision, Ngwena said that “The timing is frustrating as I prepare for my re-election campaign but it relates to a job I’ve already been elected to do and so if I’m being held to account then I will step up to the plate to face the claims made against me.”
He confirmed that, even if it wasn’t intentional, it had definitely been detrimental to his re-election plans.
Speaking to Vision on Wednesday, Humphrys added that, “I know there are disagreements about how we should approach this, and some people would have preferred me to go at the university with guns and swords but we really are making progress on that and a number of other things.”
“On the one hand I’m really sorry that some students do feel like that. I hope that at the UGM and next week, I have the opportunity to demonstrate that it really isn’t the case and we really have put hard work into working for students and on this campaign.”