Scholarship Consortium gets 3 more years
MBABANE – The Scholarship Recovery Consortium has had its contract with government extended by three years, so as to ensure a smooth transition to the Student Loan Revolving Fund.
The consortium, which was launched in June 2017, will be making way for the fund whose scholarship loans will be collected by a selected bank as the lender. The object of the fund is to provide student loans that will assist students enrolled in designated higher education institutions with financial assistance. The fund shall provide financial assistance to eligible students who meet the criteria for admission to higher education programme and the requirements of the fund.
Adoption
The developments of the contract extension were announced by Chairperson of the Ministry of Finance Portfolio Committee and Lobamba Lomdzala Member of Parliament (MP) Marwick Khumalo, when moving for the adoption of the fund’s regulations in Parliament last week Thursday.
He shared that the reason for the contract extension was to ensure a smooth transition from the consortium to the fund. This was because students who were already in the current scholarship loan system would not be transferred to the fund when it resumed its operations, but would remain in the current system as revealed by the legislator.
Khumalo asserted that the fund would have entirely new qualifying students, hence the consortium had to see its mandate through with the current crop of students enrolled under the government scholarship. Minister of Labour and Social Security Phila Buthelezi heaped praises to the consortium, stating that they had worked above board in terms of recovering the scholarship loans on behalf of government.
“Extending their working contract was not a hard decision to make given the hard work they put in. They performed very well and as a ministry, we have nothing to complain about,” he said.
When quizzed on when the fund was expected to commence their mandate, Buthelezi said that would be determined by the completion of parliamentary processes as well as the task for government to raise E1.4 billion to the fund as a capital injection.
“We can’t have the fund resuming operations with less than the E1.4 billion because we don’t want to face the same challenges we have been facing before, as far as the scholarship fund is concerned. Government also has to raise a further E3.6 billion in the next four years for the sustainability of the fund,” he said.
Facilitate
The regulations of the fund depict that the minister of Finance, in consultation and approval from Cabinet, appoint a financial institution that shall host the Eswatini Student Loan Revolving Fund account, receive funds and facilitate disbursements for activities approved by the management committee of the fund, recover monies due to the fund, select students who are eligible to benefit from the fund.
The regulations also depict that the student loan shall be granted in respect of a particular course of study and not be used for any other purpose. The amount of the loan shall be paid by the fund to the designated higher education institution in respect of student study loan and to the student, in respect of student assistance or any manner as the parties may agree by way of amounts payable to the institution and or student respectively.
Worth mentioning is that while some of the MPs were supporting the adoption of the regulations, which were eventually adopted, others were of the view that there was a lot that needed to be done for all parties involved to be in uniform.
Emanated
This emanated from submissions by MP Buthelezi in the debate for the adoption of the report of the Finance Portfolio Committee on the Eswatini Student Loan Revolving Fund Regulations 2023.
MP Buthelezi’s argument was that the regulations entailed that the Ministry of Labour and Social Security would be the one reporting on the operations of the fund, yet most of the operations were with the Ministry of Finance.
On the issue that they had the responsibility to then report on the operations of the fund, the Attorney General Sifiso Mashampu Khumalo clarified that they needed to find an alignment, on that but there was nothing wrong with the fund being with the Ministry of Finance because the latter was responsible for handling any funds on behalf of government. Forum, Mbongeni Mbingo, who remarked that the laws in the country enabled press censorship. Mbingo said; “Judges use the contempt of court principle to suppress the media. In recent years, defamation awards by the courts have escalated from E50 000 to E500 000. The latter was the highest defamation award against a media institution in the region. These are the kind of judgments that create a culture of self-censorship in newsrooms.”
Compromised
The United Nations (UN) Senior Human Rights Advisor, in the Resident Coordinators Office, Laila Nazarali, said freedom of expression was the driver of all other rights. “The freedom of expression underpins all other rights. All our freedoms depend on press freedom. When Journalism is compromised, then we cannot protect human rights. Journalists must not underestimate the power of their words, you have the power and responsibility, to change the narrative, to seek the truth, to advance for justice, transparency and accountability, to change the world.”
Nazarali said the UN had a mandate to advance the safety of journalists from intimidation, brutality and killings.