Nzimande appoints task team to probe salaries of vice chancellors
Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande has appointed a ministerial task team to look into the remuneration of vice chancellors and senior executives at the country’s public universities.
This comes after academics last year called for the scrapping of performance bonuses for university vice chancellors and executives.
Remuneration hit the headlines again after it emerged that University of South Africa's (Unisa) Mandla Makhanya and Tshilidzi Marwala of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) each took home R1.1m in bonuses last year.
Nzimande expects the report to be finalised at the end of March.
"I'm also pleased to announce that I have also appointed a ministerial task team to conduct an independent review of the University of South Africa,” he said.
"Give the size of Unisa, not only in South Africa but on the entire African continent with around 407 thousand students in 2020 and still growing, it is clearly too big to fail," said the minister.
The probe would also focus on the mandate of Unisa.
"But at the same time we are looking at admending the Higher Education Act in the main to address matter of governance.
"I must says that since 1998 we have had 15 independent accessors and I'm also worried about universities that are continuously being placed under administration - more than once some of them."
Nzimande took part in the debate on his department's readjusted budget during a virtual sitting of Parliament.