The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is being criticised for creating a situation in which thousands of students may lose their accommodation due unpaid rent.
Yesterday, the Private Student Housing Association (PSHA) set a two-week deadline for NSFAS to pay R44 million owed to private accommodation providers. About 7 000 students risk eviction if outstanding rent is not paid up.
“We don’t know when they are going to pay. We’ve reached out to NSFAS many times and we have been promised that that money was going to be settled, but it has not been settled,” said PSHA CEO Kagisho Mamabolo in an interview.
However, Freeman Nomvalo, administrator at NSFAS, said the current process was that solution providers and universities would disburse rental money.
“That has proven to create problems because you will find that on NSFAS books, every student is paid for but either the university or the solution partner has not been paying in full. You will only know about that when the landlord complains,” he said, in the same interview.
Landlords under PSHA provide accommodation for 80 000 students across South Africa. Mamabolo said they wanted to receive direct payment moving forward.
“We want to be paid directly [and] we want to be paid on time so that we can accommodate students and they can focus on their studies. If we are not paid on time, the challenge here is that we won’t be able to offer unlimited services to these students,” he said.
SMread: Ramaphosa under pressure to dismiss Ntshavheni
Picture: via zprop.co.za
