By Kouthar Sambo

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) board has dismissed the scheme’s CEO, Andile Nongogo, amidst a scandal involving R47-billion-rand in payments.

This comes after an investigation uncovered several irregularities, including Nongogo’s selection of four companies to make direct payments to approximately 1.1 million students, bypassing the usual route through tertiary institutions.

Speaking on VOC’s Drive Time show on Tuesday, Investigations Manager at the Organization Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) Rudie Hyneke said Ngogo contributed tremendously in failing to service their primary customers, who are the students.

“While a direct payment sounds like a good idea, it was done in the wrong way as there was still a third person or service provider introduced to handle it,” said Hyneke.

“NSFAS has the capacity to do it themselves and to pay the students into their account or bank of choice, and not create an artificial bank account for the students where they pay massive fees when they transact with those monies,” explained Hyneke.

There was no need to introduce four companies to make the payments, added Hyneke, when some companies may not even be registered for VAT.

“How is NSFAS balancing their books when it comes to VAT? One service provider is giving more incentives than the next one, which means one student gets better service than the other,” explained Hyneke, as he cited the flaws in the system.

According to Hyneke, the biggest losers were the students, as some of them had to sleep on the streets and did not have food.

“It is sad because these students come from the poorest households and communities in our country, and then this is done to them,” added Hyneke.

Photo: Facebook/National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS)