Statement by Dr Delmaine Christians MP – DA Spokesperson on Higher Education and Training:
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is deeply concerned by the effective collapse of the Board of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), a critical lifeline for hundreds of thousands of South African students. This failure strikes at the heart of access to higher education.
The DA notes the announcement by Buti Manamela confirming a wave of resignations from the NSFAS Board, including interim Chairperson Dr Mugwena Maluleke.
This is not an isolated incident. It reflects a full-scale breakdown of governance at one of the most important institutions in the country’s higher education system.
The continued exodus of board members, following earlier resignations this year, has rendered the Board unable to function effectively. This raises serious legal and governance concerns about its ability to fulfil its fiduciary responsibilities.
Despite repeated engagements in the Portfolio Committee, no credible or transparent turnaround plan for NSFAS has been presented to Parliament. This points to a crisis being managed without direction or urgency.
Recent revelations, including payments made to deceased beneficiaries and funding allocated to thousands of ineligible recipients, have already exposed severe weaknesses in NSFAS’s data integrity, verification systems, and financial controls.
These failures are compounded by fragmented ICT systems that cannot verify beneficiaries in real time, an over-reliance on external “solution partners” while internal systems remain weak, duplicated verification processes with no clear accountability, and poor integration between NSFAS, institutions, and national data systems.
NSFAS has now reached a point where decisive intervention is unavoidable.
While governance collapses at the top, it is students who bear the consequences forced into unsafe or unaccredited accommodation, left without food and transport allowances, and facing uncertainty at the start of each academic year.
The Minister must be held accountable for stabilising NSFAS and restoring its ability to serve students effectively.
The DA will formally request an urgent full briefing to the Portfolio Committee, clear timelines on the reconstitution of the NSFAS Board, and concrete accountability measures for those responsible for repeated failures.
South Africa cannot afford a student funding system that fails the very people it is meant to support.
Dangle
China: You have two cows. You post their pics all over social media, then sell people fake milk.
FearLeSS
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”