Students turn to sugar daddies, crime as Nsfas fail them

Students turn to sugar daddies and resort to crime when their bursary payments fail – and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) is to blame, says Tebogo Letsie, chair of the portfolio committee on higher education.

- Enkosi Selane

This follows revelations of massive financial mismanagement in the funding body.

The Auditor-General (AG) found Nsfas has incurred nearly R60 billion in irregular expenditure between 2019/20 and 2022/23 – a staggering figure that underscores deep-rooted institutional dysfunction.

Thomas Mamogwe, the AG’s Western Cape deputy business unit leader, told the committee during the presentation of Nsfas’ annual report, most of the irregular spending was related to student disbursements and direct payment tenders.

The report was submitted a year late and it has also not submitted its 2023/24 financial statements.

Letsie pulled no punches in describing the human cost of Nsfas’ failures.

“Students’ lives were destroyed,” he emphasised.

He then starkly outlined the desperate choices students face when financial support fails: