Durban — The National Student Funding Aid Scheme (NSFAS) says it would not allow a system that was established in good faith to be muddled by activities that defeat the purpose of direct payment.
This comes after a probe by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) revealed that about 40 000 undeserving students got funding from the scheme. The probe showed that there were students who falsified information to receive funding.
The scheme said that for the first time, it was verifying information with public databases, including those of the revenue service, the Department of Home Affairs, the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa), and credit bureaus.
NSFAS spokesperson Slumezi Skosana said the scheme paid for 1.1 million students. Skosana said that any student who was found to have been granted funds based on incorrect information would be defunded instantly.
That he said, would be done to avoid the wrongful and illegal allocation of funds to students who fell outside the prescription of NSFAS policies.
“It would just be prudent that we focus on the positives of the changes that we have implemented,” he said.
“The majority of our funded students are happy with our services and the scheme has made funding available for the children of the poor and the working class,” said Skosana.
He said that stringent measures would be taken to avoid a repeat of the more than R5 billion that had been incorrectly allocated to students since 2016.
Skosana said, however, that they had received complaints that some students were defunded incorrectly, and if such cases proved to be true, a process of verifying such complaints would be immediately initiated and remedial action taken.
Some of the more recent issues include not funding students who initially had fully funded status. This left thousands of students forfeiting or not receiving their allowances and being removed from their university residences.
He added that they had not opened criminal charges against any students so far, and would refer some cases to the SIU should the need arise.
SA Student Congress (Sasco) president Vezinhlanhla Simelane accused NSFAS of using a blanket approach, saying most students were defunded wrongfully. Simelane said the cases should have been looked at individually.
SRC leaders from 14 universities picketed outside the NSFAS offices in Cape Town last month to voice their frustrations over this payment system.
Students from the Durban University of Technology took to the streets demanding that the new payment system be scrapped.
In a statement, the EFF said the scheme’s inability to streamline its processes and ensure timely assistance had caused immense frustration.
“Year in, year out, these failures have far-reaching consequences, affecting the lives and aspirations of countless students,” it said.
DA higher education spokesperson Chantel King said students and universities were kept in the dark about the direct payment system and its cost implications.
She said the scheme was a way for students from poor and working-class families to access higher education.
“Beneficiaries are also still waiting on their allowances while service fees have already been deducted. And a lot of students are still waiting on funding and appeal outcomes,” King said.
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