SIU has recovered more than R2bn in irrregular funds for NSFAS

NSFAS

Cape Town — The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) revealed that it recovered more than R2 billion on behalf of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

This figure included funds that were paid to students irregularly among the country’s tertiary education institutions. However, there remain billions outstanding, which has a direct impact on students waiting to study but who cannot access financial support, EWN reported.

During a Parliament briefing, the SIU focused predominantly on post-school education and the training sector. The briefing touched on several categories including “double-funded” students and students who received funding through third parties.

The SIU forensic accountant, Lucas Letshela said the money was returned from students who were paid out illegally.

 

Letshela said there should be a policy developed on how refunds will happen as nearly 40 000 students were funded incorrectly. Students defraud NSFAS by using fake details about their parents.

“So in some instances, students took chances and will only submit one parent and say I don’t know my other parent. But through investigation, we are finding that this person has got both parents and therefore it blew up their financial criteria of less than R35,000 to qualify,” he said.

Letshela said while they’ve recovered some money for NSAFAS, there’s still R5 billion missing that was paid out to students who didn’t qualify for bursaries.

According to The Citizen, poor accounting, suspicious applications and poor oversight have led to the abuse of government student funding. Investigators told the committee that record-keeping at NSFAs and tertiary education institutions was poor, with TVET colleges particularly bad. The SIU set out to visit 76 institutions, with 12 still left to go.

Among the other issues highlighted included the lack of synchronisation as some NSFAS beneficiaries were not registered at universities, while enrolled students did not have NSFAS records.

Some of the reasons include administrative failures, Nsfas recipients dropping out without informing either entity and Nsfas recipients changing modules and living arrangements, among others.

Investigators also found that NSFAS was unable to present a list of its assets and liabilities and did not know the value of debitors’ or creditors’ books.

“The control environment is very weak. There a lot of things that happen where there are no policies that direct [processes],” said SIU COO, Leonard Lekgetho.

Among the universities to return the most money to NSFAS are the University of Johannesburg (UJ), which returned R311 892 088.94, University of Pretoria (UP) returned R400 000 000 and the University of Fort Hare (UFH) returned R277 666 450.

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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