Higher Education and Training Deputy Minister, Dr Mimmy Gondwe, has commended the recovery of R112 million in irregular payments from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) to undeserving recipients by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU).
“Two days after the Ministerial leadership team in the DHET [Department of Higher Education and Training] made a firm commitment to address the systemic governance issues at NSFAS, we commend the SIU for taking active steps to claw back irregular payments and send a clear message that abuse of the student funding system will not be tolerated,” Gondwe said.
A total of 421 students from across five universities and four Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, who did not qualify to be funded by NSFAS have signed acknowledgement of debt agreements to pay back the money that was irregularly paid to them.
READ | SIU to collect over R100 million from unqualified NSFAS beneficiaries
The SIU has attributed these irregular payments to weak controls within NSFAS, which resulted in overpayments and underpayments from 2017 to date.
in a statement on Friday, Gondwe said the R112 million paid out to undeserving recipients potentially robbed 1 700 deserving students who could have been funded for at least one academic year.
“In a sense, there are many victims who may have dropped out or deferred their studies because they could not afford to pay the requisite academic fees. Every rand that is spent on an undeserving beneficiary robs a deserving one.”
She added that the department will accelerate its efforts to fix NSFAS and take the institution out of administration and ensure that only deserving students are provided with the financial support that they need. – SAnews.gov.za
