THE Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has recovered more than R700 million from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) from various higher education institutions across the country.
According to the government’s anti-corruption agency, this sum includes R688 220 611 in unallocated funds.
While the remaining R49 705 739,60 forms part of the signed acknowledgement of debt agreements into the affairs of Nsfas.
These figures were revealed by SIU spokesman Kaizer Kganyago, who reported to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on Wednesday, 7 February on the status of the investigation into the financial aid scheme.
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The investigations were authorised to investigate allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the affairs of Nsfas and to recover any financial losses suffered by the state as a result of corruption and negligence.
According to Kganyago, the unallocated funds were due to poor control systems and lack of reconciliation processes at Nsfas and were not collected from the institution of higher learning.
When the SIU approached them, the institutions co-operated, which led to a quick recovery.
Some of the universities that were caught in the crossfire were the University of Johannesburg (UJ) with a recovery of over R311 million, the University of Pretoria with R200 million, and the University of Mpumalanga with R33 668 138.
These universities are joined by six others where recoveries also exceeded R5 million
Kganyago noted with concern what the unit's investigation revealed.
"These investigations have shown that Nsfas has failed to develop and implement controls to ensure that there's an annual reconciliation between the funds disbursed to the institutions and the allocation of these monies to the students. These control weaknesses have resulted in overpayments and underpayments of funds to the various institutions from 2017 to date," he said.
To date, Nsfas has engaged a service provider to assist them in performing this reconciliation as part of a process called close-out reporting.
