Sasco calls for probe, claiming Mani is part of bigger ‘inside job’

SOUTH Africa’s biggest student movement Sasco has called on Walter Sisulu University (WSU) and IntelliMali to expose the officials who approved the R14-million transaction to second-year accounting student Sibongile Mani’s IntelliCard.

WSU SRC student support services officer Samkelo Mqai, a Sasco deployee, said if there were people who had any explaining to do it was the officials and the university for having not detected the exorbitant payment, far from the R1 400 due to each student every month.

Mqai rubbished any suggestion of the payment having been a “mistake”, claiming the matter should be viewed as a “money-laundering scheme”.

Mqai said the claim that a number of zeros were mistakenly added to the R1 400 was disproved by the fact that the WSU students were due for allowance back pay of five months starting from February until May, which translated to R5 600 per beneficiary.

He said if zeros were erroneously added, then the amount should have been R56-million.

Mqai said Sasco believed Mani was part of a greater scheme and that placing her under the spotlight was meant to cover up other culprits.

“This is definitely an inside job. We call upon the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande, to commission a forensic probe into the matter that will investigate further than the student who has been placed at the centre deliberately to shield other people who might have been involved.

“If you connect the dots it becomes clear that the student did not act alone but no one so far has exposed who from IntelliMali and the university were involved in seeing through the transaction,” he said.

Mqai said students were only able to buy food, cosmetics and stationary with an Intellicard but Mani was able to purchase alcohol.

“How was this not detected for 73 days? They always do when a student transgresses. They send a warning SMS,” said Mqai.

He said the SRC and Sasco was ready to defend Mani.

“There is far more into this than meets the eye. We cannot allow a situation where the student becomes the centre of attention although we concede she too was reckless by spending part of the money when she knows the financial struggle of other students,” Mqai said.