{"id":843104,"date":"2025-11-13T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=843104"},"modified":"2025-11-13T14:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T12:28:14","slug":"one-south-african-institution-the-finance-minister-wants-to-close-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/843104\/one-south-african-institution-the-finance-minister-wants-to-close-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"One South African institution the Finance Minister wants to close tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana says he would close the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) if it were up to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NSFAS was established in 1996 as a South African government student financial aid scheme which provides support to undergraduate students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The financial aid is designed to help students cover the costs of their tertiary education after completing high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training and manages bursaries such as the Funza Lushaka Teacher Bursary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Problems, including mismanagement, corruption, and other governance issues have plagued the institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) revealed that NSFAS has incurred nearly R60 billion in irregular expenditure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNSFAS has long been plagued by mismanagement, leaving students vulnerable and underserved,\u201d said Matlhodi Maseko, DA Spokesperson on Higher Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many students wait for months to receive allowances or bursary funds, putting them in precarious financial positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) stated that the failure to manage their funds responsibly undermines the unemployed youth and South Africa as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It highlighted tender irregularities, including contracts awarded to service providers without banking licences, overly inflated bids, and weak supply-chain compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April 2023, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) found that more than R5 Billion NSFAS money was possibly allocated to students who did not qualify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SIU\u2019s investigations revealed that more than 40,000 students in 76 institutions of higher education have possibly been funded incorrectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The institution has further faced numerous leadership challenges, including board dissolutions, resignations, and investigations into senior personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s Finance Minister wants to close NSFAS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said he would close the National Student Financial Aid Scheme if he could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he said there were many vested interests which protect the institution despite its problems and inability to do its job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I had the option to close the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, I would do it with my eyes closed. It will be gone tomorrow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He highlighted that NSFAS’s task is to take money from the Department of Higher Education and transfer it to universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need that conduit. You can transfer money directly to the universities, and they can do the needed tasks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, we created the strange thing called NSFAS, where the CEO earns more money than the President of South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It gets worse. The institution is so dysfunctional that it has decided to outsource the work it is supposed to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey have employed four service providers to do what they were created to do,\u201d Godongwana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Finance Minister stated that students and other stakeholders have been co-opted into defending the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it serves no purpose and is dysfunctional, the numerous vested interests involved make it impossible to close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we try to close the National Student Financial Aid Scheme tomorrow, you will see protests at universities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said he would close the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) if it were up to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":843107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[17448,21799,24107,18308],"class_list":["post-843104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-enoch-godongwana","tag-finance-minister-enoch-godongwana","tag-national-student-financial-aid-scheme-nsfas","tag-organisation-undoing-tax-abuse-outa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843104"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843120,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843104\/revisions\/843120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}