Thousands of students who are funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) are writing their exams on an empty stomach after the entity’s failure to pay their November allowance.
TimesLIVE Premium has been very reliably informed that only 248,512 university students received their November allowances on Wednesday compared with 360,852 who received allowances for October.
It is understood that NSFAS did not send the payment files of more than 100,000 students to the four service providers, eZaga, Norraco Corporation, Tenet Technologies and Coinvest Africa, that have been contracted to disburse the funds. The four service providers can only pay students once they receive a payment file from NSFAS containing the names of students and amounts to be paid to each.
Students receive a monthly living allowance of R1,650 for 10 months of the year.
On Thursday, John Ndaka, president of the student representative council (SRC) at the University of Venda, pleaded with donors to assist hungry students with food parcels.
He said only 177 students received their allowances compared with 9,720 who received allowances for October.
These figures were confirmed by another independent source.
“It’s painful to see a student writing exams and coming to us for bread because they can’t afford to buy it. A lot of students come to my office crying that they are hungry.”
NSFAS expects proper results from students. How do we produce proper results in the exams while we are hungry. We are not managing at all.
— John Ndaka, president of the University of Venda SRC
Ndaka said he was also battling to concentrate on studying for the exams because of not having received his allowance.
“NSFAS expects proper results from students. How do we produce proper results in the exams while we are hungry? We are not managing at all.”
A final-year computer science student and NSFAS beneficiary said the meagre savings he had would not last for more than three days.
“Bread is R20, but I can’t eat bread alone. I am aware of students who are starving.”
On a Facebook post on Thursday, Mutshidzi Mulaudzi, one of the students from the University of Venda, wrote: “We totally have students who don’t have food. Sad truth.”
Another student wrote: “Hey guys, please help me out. I have a day and a half without eating, thinking my money will get in yesterday.”
University of Venda spokesperson Takalani Dzaga did not respond to queries.
Louis Jacobs, spokesperson for the North West University, said they began operating soup kitchens at their Vanderbijlpark, Potchefstroom and Mahikeng campuses from Thursday because students are in the middle of the exams and don’t have food.
“We began operating it because students had not received their allowances.”
He said only 3,219 of the 26,200 students attending face-to-face lectures received their allowances for November.
“After numerous efforts to get information from NSFAS, they said the rest received the full amount for the year already, which is incorrect according to our records.
“NSFAS needs to pay all students the October and November instalments. We are in contact with some of the NSFAS officials and they are doing some reconciliations.”
The president of North West University’s SRC, Yikumba Andreas, said that “while we understand the damage has already been done, our aim is to mitigate the impact of this unfortunate situation”.
William Sezoe, a former student leader at Stellenbosch University, said: “It’s very sad; our students are going to bed hungry.”
On Wednesday, the University of Limpopo and its SRC dished out food hampers to 2,000 students, including many who were not paid their NSFAS allowances at the end of September.
The chair of the NSFAS board, Ernest Khosa and spokesperson Slumezi Skosana did not respond to media queries.
Last month the preliminary findings of a probe by law firm Werksmans and advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi into the direct payment contracts, recommended that they be “cancelled on notice” owing to irregularities in the appointment of the service providers.
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