‘Budget must address ills at NSFAS’

THE Progressive Professionals Forum (PPF) in the Western Cape said it would like to see serious steps being taken to address the “chronic ailments” of governance and management at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), beyond just increased government funding.

“Every year students from poor backgrounds have to contend with boycott actions in order to seek government attention to the plight of young people in a quest for obtaining higher education,” said PPF Western Cape provincial secretary Azania Matiwane.

“NSFAS administrative failures, not only budget constraints, are always central to these strike actions. It is our advice… that as part of the budget speech, the finance minister should announce measures envisaged to address the NSFAS problems.”

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is scheduled to deliver the 2019 Budget Speech tomorrow, which will give details of spending and revenue collection plans to carry out the programmes presented in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation address.

The forum further urged the minister to make announcements around the review of the compensation regime for essential workers, such as nurses, teachers, police, social workers and soldiers.

The PPF said it expected, as part of the funding plans for basic education, that the minister should include funding for early childhood development incorporation to basic education, effectively migrating it from social development.

The PPF urged the minister to earmark at least R10 billion for purposes of encouraging entrepreneurial innovation and tax incentives for new product development.

“South African credit and insurance criteria requires revisiting to reverse the discriminatory nature of these products to black South Africans, and more particularly black businesses, effectively curtailing black participants economically,” said Matiwane. |