Auditor-General, Tsakani Maluleke.
The Auditor General of South Africa has made shocking discoveries of imbalances in the financial records of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) after it was advised to form an audit opinion.
The auditor general was briefing parliament’s higher education portfolio committee about the financial aid scheme’s 2021-22 annual report on Wednesday, when it disclosed the state of NSFAS’s affairs.
The report comes 15 months after it was scheduled for finalisation — something that was criticised by some committee members — and details NSFAS’s “internal control deficiencies”. The scheme received an adverse opinion with findings from the auditor general for 2021-22, regressing from the qualified audit it received for 2019-20.
Explaining the delay in the report, the senior manager in the auditor general’s office, Ignatius Fourie, told committee members: “This was due to NSFAS submitting revised versions of the financial statement on 29 July 2022 and 31 March 2023 to incorporate the corrected results of the Close Out Process and to address audit findings from the initial audit process.”
According to the report, there has yet to be a reconciliation between the amount owed by universities to NSFAS and what is owed by NSFAS to universities.
“The main reason for those differences is that since 2017 no reconciliations were done between the records of the institutions and the students and those of NSFAS,” said Fourie.
Last week, the Special Investigating Unit said it had recovered R737 926 351 from higher education institutions after it found that the financial aid scheme failed to design and implement measures to ensure a settlement between the funds paid to the institutions and the allocation of those funds to the students.
The scheme, which is in the first phase of the new comprehensive student funding model, said it had received 1 873 818 applications as of 8 February.
But the auditor general in its report found that NSFAS was “not ready to provide substantial social benefits for so many students” in such a short period.
The scheme has been under fire for non-payment of its beneficiaries as the academic year starts.
On Monday, GroundUp reported that more than 100 students were squatting with their belongings in the multipurpose hall at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology campus in Cape Town after CPUT said it had reached capacity.
“As of 9 February, the university-owned accredited and leased residences have reached full capacity,” read an email sent to students by the university’s Student Life and Residential Services department on 10 February.
Most students are living in the hallway without mattresses or other furniture, and have been struggling to find accommodation since 31 January.
In December, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse in a statement warned of a “student accommodation timebomb” as a result of the private accommodation cap introduced by NSFAS.
Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande announced in January that the financial aid scheme would increase its annual living allowances to R16 500 for university students. This includes a R3 045 allowance for personal care and a R13 455 meal allowance a year.
Nzimande added that the department would ensure accommodation caps for metro and non-metro areas. This meant funds to students in private accommodation would be capped at R50 000 in metro areas, and R41 000 in other areas.
NSFAS has yet to comment on the accommodation crisis.