When Fort Hare University professor Sakhela Buhlungu survived a second assassination attempt in January 2023, his bodyguard lying dead beside him, SA higher education crossed a threshold from which there may be no return.
The vice-chancellor of Nelson Mandela’s alma mater had become a marked man simply for trying to root out corruption. A R5m bounty on his head sent an unmistakable message: in today’s SA universities, fighting corruption can be a death sentence.
I was recently honoured to listen to Rhodes University professor Sioux McKenna eloquently identify three parasites feeding off higher education: the rankings industry, with its unscientific methodologies that disadvantage Global South institutions; the academic publishing industry, which profits from free academic labour while restricting access to knowledge; and Big EdTech companies that harvest data while creating dependency on expensive platforms, such as learning management systems, and surveillance tools, such as Turnitin.
McKenna is undoubtedly correct in her analysis of these external exploitative forces. Yet while scholars examine these parasitic industries that drain resources from universities there is something far more sinister at work — not a parasite that feeds off its host while keeping it alive, but a cancer that threatens to destroy the entire system from within. That cancer is corruption, and it has metastasised to such an extent that it now threatens the very existence of SA universities.
The scale of this corruption crisis defies comprehension. Since 2022 the Special Investigating Unit has recovered nearly R1bn from universities alone, yet this represents just the tip of the iceberg. At the National Student Financial Aid Scheme more than R5bn was fraudulently allocated to unqualified students, while R260m flowed monthly to about 158,000 “ghost students”. When former higher education minister Blade Nzimande describes Fort Hare as a “crime scene" he is not engaging in hyperbole, he is stating a horrifying fact about what our universities have become.
Unlike McKenna’s parasites, which drain resources while maintaining institutional viability, corruption is consuming SA higher education with devastating totality. Nine of the country’s 26 public universities now face major governance concerns, with several operating under ministerial administration. This is not isolated institutional failure but systemic collapse across the sector.
Personal chef
At the University of SA (Unisa), vice-chancellor Puleng LenkaBula epitomised the cancer’s growth, spending R3m on upgrading her residence while the institution descended into what investigators called “organised looting”. Her R285,000 curtains and R14m for additional staff — including a personal chef — represent not mere excess but the complete abandonment of educational mission.
The corruption has fundamentally compromised academic integrity, transforming universities from centres of learning into sophisticated degree mills. The fake qualifications scandal at Fort Hare, in which several prominent politicians obtained fraudulent postgraduate degrees, reveals how deeply the cancer has spread into the highest levels of government.
This is not the work of individual bad actors but of organised criminal syndicates that have captured university operations with murderous efficiency. At Fort Hare these networks control everything from cleaning contracts worth R13.9m to student accommodation schemes.
The academic fraud extends far beyond troubled institutions like Fort Hare to affect even SA’s highest-performing universities. At the University of Johannesburg (UJ), which ranks sixth nationally in research outputs and first in publications, parliamentary investigations have uncovered systematic academic fraud involving postgraduate students awarded marks for uncompleted subjects and granted diplomas without merit.
Current interventions have failed to change underlying institutional cultures and power structures. Multiple universities operating under administration indicate persistent rather than resolved crises.
The parliamentary portfolio committee on higher education expressed deep concern that only the administrator who resigned faced consequences, while no charges were brought against other implicated persons or the benefiting students. Committee chair Tebogo Letsie warned that “the full extent of this issue remains unknown, raising concerns about potential fraud in undergraduate and other postgraduate programmes”. The case demonstrates how corruption has infected even academically successful institutions, with UJ also revealed as having the most unequal remuneration structure in the country.
The violence represents a qualitative escalation that distinguishes corruption from McKenna’s external parasites, which do not murder those who resist their business models. Yet the corruption cancer kills the very people trying to heal the system.
The National Tertiary Education Union has coined the term “university capture” to describe what amounts to criminal mafia infiltration of governance structures. The R5m bounty on Buhlungu’s head demonstrates the financial resources available to corruption networks for violent enforcement of their criminal enterprises.
Perhaps most insidiously, the corruption has enabled political infiltration that destroys university autonomy. Former University of the Free State vice-chancellor Prof Jonathan Jansen revealed how political parties use student representative council members as proxies to influence tender processes, with student leaders receiving percentages of contract values in exchange for leaked information and threatened protests. This systematic political capture operates through government-appointed council members who compromise institutional independence, while municipal officials gain access to university resources through corrupted governance models.
The financial haemorrhaging continues unabated. Unisa’s R1.9m Mercedes-Benz for its vice-chancellor symbolises not individual extravagance but systematic looting. At the University of KwaZulu-Natal, officials operated an R80m extortion scheme targeting private accommodation providers, while medical school admissions were corrupted.
The government response, while recovering substantial funds, remains woefully inadequate to address root causes. SA’s Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index score stagnated at 41/100 in 2024, unchanged from 2023 but down from 44 in 2019, indicating deteriorating rather than improving conditions. The focus remains predominantly reactive — investigating past corruption rather than implementing robust prevention systems. Continuing appointments of compromised individuals to key positions suggests unchanged behavioural patterns among leaders.
Institutional collapse
While McKenna’s parasites exploit universities for profit, they do not fundamentally destroy the institutions’ capacity to function. These parasitic relationships, though problematic, allow universities to continue their core missions of teaching and research. The corruption cancer operates differently — it destroys from within, murdering those who resist and capturing institutional processes for criminal gain rather than educational purposes.
Current interventions have failed to change underlying institutional cultures and power structures. Multiple universities operating under administration indicate persistent rather than resolved crises.
Parliamentary oversight maintains public pressure but has limited enforcement power, while corruption allegations reaching the highest levels of educational leadership, including recorded conversations allegedly revealing kickbacks to senior politicians — demonstrate how the cancer has spread throughout the system.
The stakes could not be higher. With more than R7bn in identified losses, systematic violence against reform leaders and criminal networks controlling university operations, the current trajectory leads towards complete institutional collapse. Nine universities face major governance concerns, while several operate under administration, indicating widespread rather than localised problems.
The infiltration of organised crime syndicates willing to commit murder to protect corruption schemes represents an unprecedented threat to academic freedom and institutional autonomy.
McKenna rightly calls for universities to resist instrumentalism, challenge parasitic industries and embrace their role as public goods committed to speaking truth to power. But none of these noble aspirations can be achieved while corruption cancer consumes institutions from within.
The choice before us is stark: fundamental systemic intervention or institutional collapse. We need enhanced governance structures, depoliticisation of university councils, strengthened internal controls, sustained law enforcement pressure and protection for corruption fighters.
Without decisive action, SA risks losing its higher education system to criminal capture, with devastating consequences for economic development, social mobility and democratic institutions. The cancer is spreading. The question is whether we have the will to operate before it becomes terminal.
• Prof Van Staden is an associate professor at the Wits School of Law. He writes in his personal capacity.
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