William Sezoe
The decision by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) board to place its CEO Andile Nongogo on special leave pending an investigation into possible “unacceptable conduct in the awarding of bids”, is a step in the right direction.
However, the board and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande cannot be isolated from this “direct payment” controversy.
In as much as there are serious allegations against Nongogo, supported by the findings of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), we must place Nzimande and the NSFAS board in particular under the same scrutiny as they are equally to blame for this mess.
Since the outcry by its beneficiaries against this new system, NSFAS, its board and Nzimande continuously denounced the experiences of students and the findings by Outa by claiming that the system is one that is “secure, safe” and one which is a “student focused model.”
Even in light of the decision by the NSFAS board to place Nongogo on special leave, Nzimande has continued to express his support for this system by claiming that it’s “a necessary measure to reduce instances of unauthorised access to beneficiaries’ allowances, payment of ghost students, inconsistencies and delayed payments of allowances”.
This ignorance by the minister shows that he is not in touch with the realities and experiences of students who his department, under which NSFAS falls, ought to be serving.
Since these “irregularly” appointed companies, eZaga, Tenet, Coinvest and Noracco took over the distribution of allowance payments, students have been experiencing exactly what Nzimande claims they wanted to prevent or “protect” students from.
Students at Boland College, for example, are still waiting on their allowances from June, yet the minister claimed that delayed payments would be a thing of the past.
To this day more than 2 000 students at Stellenbosch University (SU) are unable to onboard and are now facing hunger.
Students across the country are complaining about fraudulent transactions on their accounts, with money just disappearing from their accounts, NSFAS’s forensics are still busy investigating this matter to find out how it happened.
Ironically, just a few days ago, during the press conference hosted by the NSFAS board, the chairperson, Ernest Khosa, echoed the sentiments of Nzimande, claiming that the system was implemented to “avoid fraudulent activities”, which is entirely inconsistent with and in contrast to what students are facing. These companies appointed further do not have the necessary systems in place to ensure that allowances are distributed correctly.
Financial aid practitioners (FAPs) at universities have expressed great concern about these companies and the fact that these companies do not have the necessary systems in place to do checks and balances.
For example, if a company pays out an allowance, there is no tracking system within the company to track if indeed they paid the beneficiary, when they did and how much.
At SU, a huge group of students who were able to onboard received incorrect allowances.
These students, who were supposed to receive the living allowance of R1 650 (before the exorbitant deductions), received personal care allowances of R305 (before deductions) instead, which also proves that Khosa’s claim that the new system would avoid the payout of incorrect allowances is an absolute myth.
Khosa also claimed that there are no additional charges when students want to make withdrawals at retail stores. This is, however, also in contrast with the fact that students are indeed cutting their allowances to make withdrawals.
As published by NSFAS and the service providers, students will have to pay R5 plus R1.50 per R100, and they will have to pay R2 per R1 000 to swipe at a till.
This clearly shows that even the board of NSFAS is equally in denial or it is a matter of them not knowing the agreements made between NSFAS and the service providers.
Considering all of this, it is quite clear that the direct payment system has already failed in its main and original purpose, since NSFAS could not guarantee banking safety and security, timely allowance and correct allowance payouts with respect to this new method.
The NSFAS board and Nzimande are equally to blame for the crisis the higher education sector is currently in. As much as Nongogo has a case to answer, the board must also be called forward to justify how they could allow NSFAS to appoint these inexperienced companies.
As students, we will not rest until the NSFAS direct payment system is scrapped and we have therefore written to the public protector to prioritise their investigation into this system.
We have also launched a petition against this system with over 8 000 signatures, which we will submit to the higher education portfolio committee before they are set to meet NSFAS next month.
Sezoe is the Stellenbosch University SRC vice-chairperson and member of the DA student organisation FedEx.
Cape Times