The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is confident that future financial reports will be submitted to parliament on time. The scheme has routinely failed to submit its financial reports to parliament for several years.
The government bursary scheme has blamed this on universities and TVET colleges.
NSFAS provides comprehensive bursaries and student loans to deserving learners enrolled in approved courses at universities and TVET colleges. These bursaries cover tuition and registration fees, as well as several allowances for food, accommodation, and learning materials.
Money for tuition and registration fees are paid directly to intuitions. Therefore, NSFAS requires relevant information from institutions for the scheme to submit financial statements to parliament.
According to the scheme, only 50 of the 76 public tertiary education institutions have submitted the required information for the 2023 academic period.
Minister of Higher Education Nobuhle Nkabane says steps will be taken to ensure institutions submits required information on time.
I'm going to universities and TVET Colleges and advise them that I intend to impose penalties on those who withhold critical data from NSFAS thereby preventing NSFAS from submitting its annual financial statements.
NSFAS says its 2022/2023 financial statements are expected to be tabled in parliament a full year after it was required. However, the scheme is confident that the 2023/2024 financial reports will be submitted to the Auditor General before the end of October 2024.
NSFAS Administrator, Freeman Nomvalo told Parliament that next year’s financial report will be submitted to parliament on time.
I am confident that come next year we will be ready, like I said, the biggest part of what goes into the preparation of the annual financial statements is this closeout process. We will have done all of the universities up to December 2023 information by this Friday.
Concerns Over Higher Student Accommodation Costs
Minister Nkabane also expressed concern over the high costs of private student accommodation in South Africa. The Minister says the billions of rands paid to private student accommodation providers are unsustainable.
Our projections are saying that we are spending 20 to 30 billion a year so if that's the case, we need to at some point come up with a strategy or review our model that we are using as far as private student accommodation is concerned.
NSFAS recently introduced an accommodation cap to curb the high costs of private accommodation.
Students living in approved private accommodations are eligible for a capped housing allowance of up to R50,000 annually in metropolitan areas and R41,000 in other regions. This applies to university students and TVET College students.
Recent statements from the Minister indicate that NSFAS’ accommodation allowance strategy could change.
SIU Recovers More Than R1 Billion From Universities and TVET Colleges
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has recovered more than R1 Billion rand from universities and TVET colleges in NSFAS fund recoveries.
Millions of rands have been received from various institutions that were found to have misappropriated NSFAS funds.
