TUT students evicted from residences due to NSFAS pay-out delays

Some university students had to leave their residences after National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) delayed paying their accommodation allowances, four months into the year.

From mid-March one of the universities affected by delayed pay-outs, Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), students were given eviction letters.

Recently some of these students had to pack their bags citing that lack of NSFAS pay-outs failed them.

EFF marched to the Union Buildings recently and delivered a memorandum stating their unhappiness about students dependent on NSFAS not receiving any allowances.

“Students are removed from their residences because they don’t have accommodation money,” the memorandum read.

As the students’ debacle take heed, President of EFF student command, Mandla Shikwambana said the Department of Higher Education and Training minister Blade Nzimande failed students.

Shikwambana said the student command wanted an “immediate removal” of Nzimande. At the centre of the call for Nzimande’s removal, Shikwambana said it was due to a lack of or the broken promise of free education.

“We want free education because the freedom charter notes that South African students will be given free education.

“We are now sitting at 27 years of freedom but we still haven’t received free education,” he said.

Shikwambana said in 2017 before Jacob Zuma left the Presidency, Zuma said free education was possible.

“Nzimande has been a minister before [in the same portfolio], but there is nothing happening in the department that serves students,” he said.

A representative of the unemployment social workers movement, Phengi Khoza said there was a need for free education, “because at the end of the day parents pay fees for their kids but they end up being unemployed”.

Khoza said she was concerned over the rising level of unemployment.

“I am asking myself what will happen to our youth in years to come because of unemployment. The parents and the youth are unemployed.”

The protest by EFF took place days after NSFAS released a statement confirming on April 5 that the scheme received the first portion of its budgetary allocation for the first quarter of the financial year.

“The scheme will thus be able to start processing payments to institutions and paying student allowances from Friday, April 8, 2022. An official communication has been sent to all institutions on the allowance payment process,” the statement read.

“The institutions that have complied with the 2022 approved NSFAS eligibility criteria and conditions for financial aid will receive payment from NSFAS.”

By March end, Walter Sisulu University in the Eastern Cape also took to the streets to raise grievances over NSFAS issues.

The Department of Higher Education and Training had not responded by the time of publication.

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