R11 Million for NSFAS Administrator

Statement by Dr Delmaine Christians MP – DA Spokesperson on Higher Education and Training:

The DA has written to Chairperson Tebogo Letsie of the Higher Education Portfolio Committee, demanding that Minister Manamela play open cards about his plans to waste R11 million of taxpayer money on the unnecessary Administration of NSFAS.

Treasury has now rejected Minister Buti Manamela’s proposed remuneration package, directing that it be reconsidered and aligned with previous NSFAS and university administrator appointments.

It should never have taken Treasury to stop an excessive remuneration proposal while NSFAS continues to fail the very students it exists to serve.

South Africans deserve to know how Minister Manamela believed this proposal was acceptable while students continue to endure delayed funding, accommodation disputes, administrative failures and uncertainty about their futures.

This development also reinforces the DA’s call for full transparency on every appointment made under the current NSFAS administration, including the remuneration, mandates and approval processes relating to advisors and consultants.

Taxpayers cannot be expected to bankroll an ever-growing bureaucracy while students bear the consequences of a system that continues to malfunction.

Minister Manamela cannot simply move on from this embarrassment. He must explain who recommended this remuneration package, what process was followed, what motivated such an excessive proposal, and why Treasury had to step in to restore a measure of fiscal restraint.

This latest episode also reinforces why the DA has consistently called for a review of the NSFAS Act and the decentralisation of the scheme. South Africa cannot continue pouring more money into an expanding central bureaucracy while students remain trapped in a system that repeatedly fails them. Universities and TVET colleges are better placed to administer student funding closer to the point of service, with greater accountability and fewer layers of costly administration.

NSFAS exists to fund students, not administrators. It is time to decentralise the scheme and put students, not bureaucracy, back at the centre of student financial aid.