The National Student Financial Aid Scheme was grilled in Parliament on Wednesday by the portfolio committee for higher education over its ongoing failures on the payment of student allowances.
According to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse , NSFAS hired businesses without banking licence registrations to handle direct payment to students, and these businesses charged much higher rates than commercial banks. OUTA started exposing the irregularities as early as September 2022. NSFAS acting chief operations officer Vuyokazi Mafilika said the fund had received 170,683 financial and academic appeals from first-time and returning students who were defunded or rejected. Of these, 58,924 students were funded again; 6,337 applicants were rejected; 28,971 were “deemed invalid” because of withdrawn, deleted and duplicated appeals.
Mandla Shikwambana said at least 1,300 students at Free State University still haven’t received their allowances since March.