Difficult to defend university execs' exorbitant salaries, perks - Council on Higher Education

JOHANNESBURG - The Council on Higher Education said it is difficult to defend exorbitant salaries and perks for executives at South Africa's universities.

This is after it emerged that at least half of the Vice Chancellors (VCs) at public universities earned well above R4 million in 2019.

The University of Johannesburg (UJ)'s Vice Chancellor topped the list with a salary, perks, and incentives totalling a combined R7 million.

The Council on Higher Education recently presented the findings of an inquiry into the remuneration of university executives to Parliament.

The council found that the VCs and senior executives at most of the country's universities were given generous remuneration packages and increases spiraling above inflation.

With a total cost to the company of R7 million, the council raised some concerns about UJ.

This includes that there were no records of how it made decisions about performance bonuses and other incentives paid to its VC.

The University of Limpopo and the University of Pretoria also couldn’t account for some of the money paid to its VCs.

The inquiry believes the hefty pay cheques were facilitated by weak institutional governance and accounting practices at universities.

The council warns that a lack of internal and external regulation threatens to undermine institutional autonomy.