Inappropriate NSFAS funding worth more than R5bn uncovered by SIU

A Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation has found that at least 40 000 students were possibly funded inappropriately by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), at a cost of some R5 billion.

The SIU on Tuesday said these students are from households that earn more than the cut off of R350 000 and “therefore would not qualify for NSFAS funding, based on the funding rules”.

“These students did not submit their parents’ details upon application and therefore the means test was not properly conducted.

“Furthermore, the SIU has facilitated a refund or managed to ring-fence approximately R38.3 million possibly due to NSFAS from three TVET colleges. [The] SIU is in the process of engaging other institutions to determine if they are holding any overpayments that need to be ring-fenced, pending the finalisation of the investigation.

“The SIU’s investigation shows that NSFAS failed to design and implement controls that would ensure that there is an annual reconciliation between the funds disbursed to the institutions and the funded list of registered students,” the SIU said in a statement.

According to the corruption busting unit, weaknesses in control culminated in “overpayments and underpayments of funds to the different institutions for the period 2017 to date”.

“The SIU has also identified different scenarios in terms of which students were funded because of overpayments, underpayments, unfunded students, double dipping and dropouts, and the involvement of syndicates in student accommodation.

“All these implications are because the different governance levels and senior management staff did not fully discharge their duties in terms of the all the different applicable legislation,” the SIU said. – SAnews.gov.za