The public is inundated with daily reminders of just how ineptly the National Student Financial Aid Scheme is managed.
And we are not talking small amounts. NSFAS reportedly has a budget of R41.9bn for 2024-2025 to fund university students.
This was set to increase to R43.7bn for 2025-2026. In addition, they received R9.7bn for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges for 2024 and R10bn for 2025.
It therefore manages a budget of some R50bn a year.
Much can be achieved with this vast amount of money. Yet, NSFAS annually squanders, misdirects and mismanages that budget and allows a large amount to be stolen or defrauded from the fund.
Every year, students protest the failure of NSFAS to pay their tuition, housing and allowance on time or at all. Universities and other institutions of higher education are brought to a standstill and property is destroyed as students vent their anger.
NSFAS also annually fails to properly apply or police its own eligibility criteria, squandering millions of rand on students who do not qualify. And it does nothing to stem this illicit expenditure.
The SIU last week revealed that some 40 000 students who did not qualify were funded more than R5bn during the past five years alone.
But, in January last year, then higher education minister Blade Nzimande said the scheme “continues to strengthen its governance and management structures by attracting relevant skills to ensure that it fulfil its mandate”.
What a joke. Just three months later he dissolved the NSFAS board — which he had appointed — and announced his intention to place NSFAS under administration due to the huge failures in management and accountability.
The department and its latest minister Nobuhle Nkabane have yet to appoint a new board. Imagine that — a scheme which manages R50bn a year has no board. The accountability arm of the entire operation has essentially been missing in action for almost a full financial year.
Having no board probably makes little difference. The previous board was so profoundly inept it couldn’t even get its act together to file annual reports on time.
Not surprisingly, the auditor-general’s office has red-flagged some R60bn in irregular expenditure between 2020 and 2023.
It’s easy to suggest glib solutions — like keep politics out of the appointment process of the board and management of NSFAS. But that is never going to happen.
One can only hope that NSFAS and the department at least resolves its management, internal control and oversight issues that have led to R60bn in irregular expenditure and enduring hardship for students and the institutions they attend.
In the meantime, the 668,000 young people who have been approved for NSFAS funding for 2025 are probably already feeling stressed at the battles they must fear are lying ahead.
Hopefully, this year will be different. But no-one is holding their breath.
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