SOUTH AFRICA: Troubled university gets administrator

South Africa's Education Minister Naledi Pandor has appointed University of the Witwatersrand extraordinary professor of education Jonathan Jansen as administrator of the beleaguered Mangosuthu University of Technology, reports Business Day. Jansen, who started last week, has six months to help the university back onto its feet after what appears to be more than five years of tyrannical rule by suspended Vice-chancellor Aaron Ndlovu.

Independent assessor Professor Vincent Maphai in December produced a detailed report that leaves a picture of Ndlovu using the institution as his personal fiefdom since his 1997 appointment. In 1998 Ndlovu passed an "omnibus resolution" giving himself the management and administrative powers that usually reside in a higher education institution's council, and Maphai found that good corporate governance practices were not followed.

This led to a situation in which Ndlovu, who presided over South Africa's least productive university of technology, collected a R3,2 million (US$ million) salary which was 107% higher than the midpoint of the higher education sector, and 158% higher than the midpoint for institutions of a similar size, Maphai said, adding that the institution's council had been largely ineffective for almost a decade.
Full report on the Business Day site