South African Student Congress march to the Department of Higher Education in Pretoria, 12 April 2024, to protest about the payout of National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NASFAS). Picture: Nigel Sibanda/ The Citizen
Our front-page headline today – “We starve while you eat” – sums up life in South Africa under a government whose people believe their welfare and financial ease comes before anything else.
In this case, it is university students from poor backgrounds who are going hungry, because their promised money from the National Student Financial Assistance Scheme (Nsfas) hasn’t materialised. Some are thinking about killing themselves while others are doing crime or prostitution to survive.
All the while, Nsfas itself is at the centre of unresolved accusations of backhanders from service providers – which allegedly implicate Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande himself, as well as the SA Communist Party, of which he is a prominent member.
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In any functioning democracy, Nzimande would have resigned – even if only to allow space to clear his name – or would have been fired by the head of state ahead of a full investigation. Of course, nothing like that has happened in our mafia state.
This is not the only evil in Nsfas. Investigations have identified as many as 40 000 students who are getting support they are not entitled to.
In other words, 40 000 families are also crooks. It’s not their children who will go hungry, either.