TheInsider

Wits: home of lobbyists and business leaders

PRODUCING super-rich corporate leaders is not an attribute one would want to ascribe to one’s university during a discussion about inequality in one of the most unequal societies in the world.

But, as it happens, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) vicechancellor Adam Habib is an expert at flipping the script in his favour.

During last week’s Ruth First Memorial Lecture by National Union of Metalworkers of SA general secretary Irvin Jim, Habib said a recent index included Wits University on a list of tertiary institutions that produce the most business heavyweights.

“The university ranks on a list of the universities that produce the most millionaires, billionaires and CEOs. We rank 64th on that list, actually,” Habib said.

“Someone recently brought this up in a conversation with me and cheekily asked me how I feel about it. I responded by acknowledging that we do produce a large number of millionaires, billionaires and CEOs, but pointed out that we also produce a large number of the activists and people who fight with those millionaires, billionaires and CEOs,” he said. Bachelor Boy in the frame BRITISH singer Cliff Richard was on a summer holiday in Portugal when a scandal broke about something he was alleged to have done to some youngster many years ago. The singer, who once sang about The Young Ones — “young ones shouldn’t be afraid”, one line encouraged youngsters — has vehemently denied the allegations.

Richard was always seen as the cleaner half of the 1960s’ famous twosome — Elvis Presley was the bad boy — and counted US preacher Billy Graham as a friend.

Graham was so gifted at moving a crowd to tears and making money that some called him Lucky Lips, after a Richard song of the early 1960s (“A pair of lips so true” was a line from the song that both Richard and Graham could identify with).

Richard’s sexual orientation has long been the subject of speculation, ever since he brought out the song, Bachelor Boy, in 1963. Later, in 1970, Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha was viewed as confirmation that Richard did not have affairs with women. Wise words “IT HAS never been said, but More wise words “WHEN you use music to worship, you are not attempting to entertain.” Cliff Richard, British pop singer (born 1940).