Cape Town — The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) says it has managed to claw back over R700 million in its finances into the finances of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
In a statement, SIU revealed that a total of R737 926 351 was recovered, including R688 220 611.56 in unallocated funds, with an additional signed acknowledgement of R49 705 739.60 in debt agreements with Motheo Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) College in the Free State, and with parents and students who did not meet the NSFAS funding criteria.
“The unallocated funds are due to poor control systems and a lack of reconciliation processes by NSFAS. These funds were not collected from institutions of higher learning, and when approached by the SIU, the institutions co-operated, leading to a qucik recovery process,” SIU Spokesperson, Kaizer Kganyago, said.
#SIUWorkingForYou|SIU makes further progress in NSFAS investigation with more than R737 million in recoveries. https://t.co/GeFPXtpskn
— Special Investigating Unit (SIU) (@RSASIU) February 7, 2024
The SIU investigation has revealed that NSFAS failed to design and implement controls to ensure that there is an annual reconciliation between the funds disbursed to the institutions and the allocation of those funds to the students. These control weaknesses led to overpayments and underpayments of funds.
NSFAS has recently appointed a service provider to assist them in performing this reconciliation via a process called “close-out reporting”. The reconciliation process is still ongoing.
With regards to NSFAS-funded accommodation, the SIU found that details of the accommodation such as physical addresses and details of the landlord or owner of the accommodation were not captured on the NSFAS system. The physical address of the accommodation and landlord or owner was not vetted by the NSFAS.
According to EWN, the SIU on Wednesday told Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (SCOPA) that it’s making significant progress in clawing back funds since it started investigating maladministration and corruption at the scheme. Thus far, 58 institutions have been visited, including four universities, to get money erroneously paid by NSFAS.
A total of 40 000 students
Among the institutions the SIU has recovered funds from include the following:
- West Coast College -R5 057 679.00
- Northlink College -R33 369 404.97
- Walter Sisulu – R19 900 174.00
- Nkangala TVET – R342 672.50
- University of Johannesburg – R311 892 088.94
- University of Zululand – R58 088 144.65
- University of Pretoria – R200 000 000.00
- Majuba TVET College – R25 902 309.31
- University of Mpumalanga – R33 668 138.56
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
