Africa-Press – South-Africa. Professor Dan Kgwadi, the vice-chancellor and principal at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT), has died.
The institution’s chairperson Professor Mandla Radebe confirmed in a campus communique that Kgwadi had succumbed to illness on Sunday night.
In February, Kgwadi had threatened VUT with legal action after he was placed on special leave after he had been off sick for 14 days, of which he spent five in hospital.
Kgwadi had told News24 that Radebe had recommended he be medically boarded as he was “forever sick”.
The university council had placed him on special leave pending a review of his probationary process.
He was employed on 1 February last year. His probation was to have lasted six months but this was extended to 31 January this year on the condition his probation report would have been submitted by then.
Kgwadi has been hailed for his fight for transformation at North-West University, where he was employed before being hired at VUT.
His friend and former colleague, Theo Venter said the news of Kgwadi’s death was difficult.
He had been Kgwadi’s advisor at NWU between 2013 to 2016.
According to Venter, Kgwadi, whom he described as an honest and professional person, was “not a healthy man”.
“I advised him when he was offered the [VUT post] not to accept it but to retire due to his health,” said Venter, who called VUT a “demanding institution”.
“I was worried about the stress at VUT. I advised him as a friend to reconsider his decision, not as his advisor.
“At a personal level, he had difficulties with conflict and stress. [But] he was a good man.”
Kgwadi was a religious man who was proud of where he was from, Venter said.
“We often visited his village in Kraaipan. He did a lot for his community there.”
Kgwadi wanted to turn NWU’s Mahikeng, Potchefstroom and Vaal campuses into one unified structure, which took him a while, with lots of strategic planning, to get this model off the ground.
“The logistics of managing campuses that are hundreds of kilometres apart was challenging. Once the model was established, he told me that he had accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. He said it was time to move on.”
ALSO READ | Shock as another University of Fort Hare bodyguard killed
Kgwadi had told Venter that the council at his new workplace had “had a fallout with him”.
Kgwadi “didn’t deal well with stress”, Venter said.
“VUT was dysfunctional when he took over. Many were confident he would bring the same skill and strategy he applied at North-West University. The symptoms were entrenched. I established this when we were talking. It was a challenging job to take.”
Kgwadi’s successor, Professor Bismark Tyobeka, said he had inherited a “working university” thanks to his predecessor’s “immense” contribution.
“We woke up with a big shock. We have known each other for some time. Kgwadi was not in good health. However, he survived all these episodes. We were hoping he would recover,” said Tyobeka.
“Our friendship started in 1994 when he was my lecturer [at the then University of Bophuthatswana]. I later left the country, and we kept in touch. He encouraged me to be a member of [the NWU] council. I later became chair of the council. He used to make jokes that I was his student and had grown to become his boss.
“We remember him as a gentleman committed to the North-West University and his province in general. He made an indelible contribution to transforming the university. He was the transformation driver.”
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
