The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has secured Acknowledgment Of Debt (AOD) agreements valued at R85 million in connection with monies paid irregularly to non-qualifying students by the national Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

This was revealed by Higher Education and Training Minister Nobuhle Nkabane in a reply to parliamentary questions posed by DA MP Desiree van der Walt.

Van der Walt enquired whether the R112 billion SIU established was paid to “undeserving students” has been recovered in full and other action taken against the students besides the signing the AOD agreements.

In August 2022, the SIU was authorised by President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate maladministration in the affairs of the NSFAS.

The investigation started in September 2022 and was expected to take about 18 months to complete.

The corruption-busting body previously told Parliament that the students were incorrectly funded because their household income was above R350 000 and did not qualify for NSFAS funding.

SIU had indicated that the students did not submit their parent's details upon application and the means test was not properly conducted.

It found that an amount to the tune of R5 106 561 573 was paid to the non-qualifying students between 2018 and 2021.

In her written response, Nkabane said the SIU had indicated that there would be potential recoveries valued at R112 billion to be collected through AOD agreements during their update in June.

“NSFAS can confirm that per data provided by SIU 469 AODs amounting to R85 407 342 have been entered into by the SIU.

“One AOD amounting to R38 696477 relates to an institution and 468 AODs, amounting to R46 720 865, relate to individuals,” she said.

Nkabane also said the full amount has not been recovered.

However, she said the other actions taken against undeserving students besides the signing AOD agreement was still subject to the SIU’s investigation.

“We await the findings and recommendations that will be put forward to the NSFAS.”

She also said the same applied to officials responsible for the irregular payment and NFSAS.

“This is still subject to the investigation process of the SIU investigation.”

Nkabane said control measures have been put on place to prevent future wrong payments.

“A funding decision validator component was introduced to run applications against all funding rules before the funding decision is communicated to the applicant.

“This component is triggered when the application has reached the final evaluation step and a funding decision has been made.

“It performs due diligence by running all the rules at once to determine the correctness of the decision.”

She said if the applicant's funding decision did not match the one from the validator, the application was temporarily held for investigation by the technical team.

Meanwhile, an agreement was reached between the department and all public higher education institutions to address the historical debt owed by students.

Nkabane said institutions furnish students with academic records upon completion of their studies so that they were able to find employment or further their studies.

“Some universities have however followed other routes they believe will protect their sustainability,” she said when responding to Patriotic Alliance MP Jasmine Petersen when asked about measures her department was taking to address the issue of historic debt for students who could to receive their certificates due to outstanding tuition fees.

Nkabane added that her department planned to engage universities on solutions to address student debt as part of its intentions to consult more widely on the comprehensive student funding model that will benefit the “missing middle” students.

Saturday Star

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SIU recoups irregular NSFAS payments