NATIONAL NEWS: Probe into R14 million ‘allowance’ allocated to student
IntelliMali investigating a fraud case after it was discovered that the student had already spent R818,000.
IntelliMali, a company responsible for administering the National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has taken responsibility over the misallocation of R14million into a student’s account, instead of a monthly allowance of R1 400.
Intellimali said this in a statement on Wednesday following news that a student from the Walter Sisulu University was allocated millions in June.
Also read: NSFAS defaulting beneficiaries may be blacklisted
“The female student had already spent R818 000 when the error was discovered early this month.”
The company has appointed a forensic auditor to investigate a possible case of fraud.
“The student did not report the oversight but chose rather to access the funds,” Intellimali said.
“Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, Intellimali takes full administrative and financial responsibility for the incident. Neither the funder, National Student Financial Aid Scheme nor the university (WSU), have erred in any way and they are not responsible for this.”
Also read: NSFAS opens online applications
The company said students who are beneficiary of the fund will not be affected by this error.
“We have already put in place the necessary controls to prevent an incident of this nature ever happening again.”
Intellimali has been administering funds for the past 10 years and have so far loaded and managed more than R5 billion in allowances.
“Nothing like this has ever occurred before at Intellimali.”
The students’s allowance was deactivated as soon as the error was identified.
“Intellimali is currently in talks with NSFAS and WSU to determine the most appropriate action to be taken.”
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
