JUST IN: Nsfas to fire service providers

THE National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) is getting its duck in a row and finally cleaning house.

This after Nsfas administrator, Freeman Nomvalo confirmed that they have made progress in terminating direct payment service providers namely, Ezaga Holdings, Coinvest Africa, Norraco Corporation and Tenet Technologies.

Nomvalo said this on Monday, 27 May during a media briefing where he gave an update on the progress of the disbursement of student allowances, student accommodation and other related administrative reforms at the scheme.

The decision to terminate the four service providers comes as per recommendations of the Werkmans Attorneys report.

The report was commissioned by Nsfas to provide a comprehensive analysis of the scheme and identify areas for improvement, especially in relation to procurement systems and management deficiencies.

"I'm happy to announce that the process to terminate these contracts has commenced with the filling of the necessary court papers on 24 May.

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"Nsfas collaborated with the Special Investigation Unit to terminate these contracts. Through our lawyers, we've communicated this decision to all the direct payment service providers today," he said.

Nomvala said for Nsfas to keep up with the payment of monthly allowances to university students, universities were asked to help with these processes until the end of July.

"I'm pleased to announce that the payment that are currently being made are directly to students bank account as announced on the 26 April after the payment file generation," he said.

A month ago, Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande took the decision to dissolve the Nsfas board, with the board chairman Ernest Khosa tendering his resignation.

The scheme has been met with an uproar from students over delayed payments for the month of April. Things even went as far as many threatening a nationwide shutdown "soon" as they were fed up with the funding delays.