g) Success and challenges of the university Ms A Church: Acting Director Marketing, Communications and Development led the presentation which highlighted the following key issues: . WSU had more than 25 000 students with 2500 staff members. Half of the population of the Eastern Cape was educated by the university. The university was the only institution of the three higher education institutions with a Medical School in the province. . The university was working with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) to produce Chartered Accountants and 100 students were already enrolled for the programme. . WSU had a research chair in Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and various community engagements on HIV programmes in rural areas. . A major turnaround strategy had been submitted to the Minister. The university was financially bankrupt and 80% of its budget went to salaries of personnel staff. . The merger of the university was incomplete. Currently, there were three payrolls of staff from the three merged institutions. There was no harmonization of conditions of service of personnel staff. . The administrator submitted a proposal of R1.7 billion to overhaul the entire institution. There was a serious backlog of dilapidated infrastructure and student residences were not conducive to learning. . The two legacy institutions before the merger were also bankrupt; hence the university had been operating on a deficit for the past five years.