An investigation by the state’s Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has revealed that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has paid more than R5b to at least 40 000 students who did not qualify for funding since 2017.

On Tuesday, the SIU said these students were from households earning more than the R350 000 threshold and would therefore not qualify for NSFAS funding under the funding rules.

“These students did not submit their parents’ details upon application and therefore the means test was not properly conducted.

“Furthermore, the SIU has facilitated a refund or managed to ring-fence approximately R38.3m possibly due to NSFAS from three TVET colleges. [The] SIU is in the process of engaging other institutions to determine if they are holding any overpayments that need to be ring-fenced, pending the finalisation of the investigation.

“The SIU’s investigation shows that NSFAS failed to design and implement controls that would ensure that there is an annual reconciliation between the funds disbursed to the institutions and the funded list of registered students,” the SIU said in a statement.

According to the corruption busting unit, weaknesses in control culminated in ‘overpayments and underpayments of funds to the different institutions for the period 2017 to date’.

According to the anti-corruption unit, weaknesses in the controls led to ‘overpayments and underpayments of funds to the various institutions for the period 2017 to date’.

“The SIU has also identified different scenarios in terms of which students were funded because of overpayments, underpayments, unfunded students, double-dipping and dropouts, and the involvement of syndicates in student accommodation.

“All these implications are because the different governance levels and senior management staff did not fully discharge their duties in terms of all the different applicable legislation,” the SIU said.– SAnews.gov.za