The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is a disgrace. Responsible for channelling government financial support to students from some of SA’s poorest households, it is always in the headlines for the wrong reasons.
Public attention is rightly focused now on its latest corruption scandal, in which CEO Ernest Khosa and higher education, science and innovation minister Blade Nzimande are alleged by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse to have taken kickbacks from service providers.
Let us not forget this is an inefficient and indifferent institution that consistently fails to pay students, universities and Technical and Vocational Education Training Colleges on time.
This is no small matter: NSFAS beneficiaries go hungry if their monthly allowances aren’t paid when they should be. Universities are under pressure too: following through on former president Jacob Zuma’s promise of free higher education has seen their core funding shrink, undermining their ability to hire top academics, invest in infrastructure or bridge the gap when NSFAS leaves its beneficiaries in the lurch.
Given that cuts announced in the medium-term budget policy statement left NSFAS with a projected R1.1bn deficit for 2023-24 fiscal year, it has more of a responsibility than ever to run a tight ship.
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