People should be ashamed of themselves for snatching away hope from poor students

It is easy to become battered into numbness by the tsunami of reports of corruption and thieving in this country – most of which can be laid at the door of the ANC, its leaders and its connected “cadre-deployed” members.

But the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) revelation that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) was ripped off to the tune of R5 billion between April 2016 and August last year should induce a sense of shock.

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Firstly, this is theft of money which is intended to improve the lives of the most impoverished in our country. It is equally as abhorrent as the theft of Venda Building Society Mutual Bank money, much of which was the life savings or pension money of people from poor rural areas of Limpopo.

It is in the same league as stealing money intended for personal protective equipment during the Covid pandemic – money which was intended to protect vulnerable medical staff from infection in the awful early days of the crisis.

In other words, this is not a victimless crime. The victims of this scandal are young people from poor homes who have the ability and the intelligence to go to university or other tertiary institutions, but have had that chance ripped away from them.

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An understandable reaction would be to say: Well, we don’t expect anything else from our corrupt ruling party.

But that ignores the fact the SIU says more than 40 000 students who did not qualify for financial assistance – those from homes with a gross annual income of R360 000 or more – had their fees paid by the taxpayer.

That means that, prima facie, at least 40 000 comparatively well-off families are accomplices in this deliberate diversion of state resources. Those people should be ashamed of themselves for snatching away hope from the poor.

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