Scrap the NSFAS tender system, says Accountability Now

Accountability Now director Paul Hoffman has called for an overhaul of state funding for students in the wake of alleged kickbacks and corruption at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), which handles more than R46bn in education grants.

Hoffman told Newzroom Afrika that the tender system should be scrapped and funds paid directly to undergraduates after an Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) report alleged higher education minister Blade Nzimande, the SA Communist Party (SACP), and NSFAS board chair Ernest Khosa received millions of rand in bribes from service providers.

Khosa took voluntary leave of absence pending an investigation into the claims. There are mounting calls for the resignation of Nzimande whose department oversees NSFAS. Nzimande and Khosa denied wrongdoing. Allegations of corruption at NSFAS surfaced three months after the board fired former CEO Andile Nongogo following a report by law firm Werksmans Attorneys and advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi detailing irregularities in a tender awarded to four companies.

The Outa report alleges Nzimande and Khosa were involved in malfeasance.

Hoffman said: “The service providers, some of them have been involved in shenanigans that benefited the SACP, if not the minister of higher education, were unnecessarily appointed because the staff of NSFAS are meant to be dishing out the grants to students.

“Subcontracting it out was done irregularly and illegally. It’s not their job to find other people to do their work. It is their job to do their work. That is where the basic flaw in the system happens.”

The EFF, ActionSA and the DA opened criminal cases on the allegations against Nzimande and Khosa. Hoffman said the spotlight was on the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). “The ball is in the court of the Hawks and NPA. We must just hope it is not sent to them to die of unnatural causes but that they will give attention to the docket.

“We should expect a criminal prosecution by the Hawks and the NPA in a case such as this where angry students burn universities if they do not get the grants they expected. Nzimande said on Monday the claims against him and Khoza are false. “As minister of higher education, science and innovation I have never used money from any of my department’s entities for funding the SACP, as maliciously suggested in the Outa report,” said Nzimande.

“Nor have I received personal kickbacks from the service providers to NSFAS or any of the other entities falling under my departments.”