There was good news for TVET College students who having been calling for NSFAS to drop the so-called fintech providers who were contracted last year to pay allowances to students. This comes after several challenges and payment delays.
The controversial decision to appoint the four companies was one of the factors that lead to the dismissal of the former CEO of NSFAS in 2023.
A legal report into problems at the organisation found that the appointment of the fintech providers was irregular and should be cancelled. The absence of any action over the last 4 months was one of the reasons cited by the Higher Education Minister for the dismissal of the entire NSFAS Board earlier this month.
Now the recently-appointed Administrator of NSFAS, Mr Freeman Nomvalo has announced that allowances to TVET College students will be paid directly from NSFAS into the students' bank accounts. This will start from the next payments in May, and won't impact the April payments which should already have been made.
NSFAS has devised a payment mechanism to address these ongoing challenges with the assistance of its banker which will be implemented for the payments that are due at the end of May 2024.
NSFAS has asked all TVET College students who don't have bank accounts to open one and inform the scheme of their details via their MyNSFAS login account. The account can be with any South African bank of the student's choice.
In terms of the mechanism, NSFAS will distribute allowances directly to student's bank accounts.
This new arrangement only applies to TVET College students at the moment. University students will continue to be paid their allowances via their universities until at least July of this year.
All TVET students who do not have bank accounts are encouraged to open bank accounts with banks of their own choice. The scheme will communicate to all NSFAS beneficiaries requesting them to update their details to enable the smooth implementation of this direct payment mechanism.
