PRETORIA, Gauteng — The escalating NSFAS funding crisis has prompted decisive action from Deputy Minister for Higher Education and Training, Yusuf Cassim, following a targeted oversight visit to the University of South Africa (Unisa). The high-level intervention addresses mounting student anxieties over delayed financial aid disbursements, signaling a renewed push for immediate collaboration between the national funding body and higher education institutions to relieve severe financial pressures.
Highlighting critical issues flagged through the Deputy Minister’s help desk—an initiative originally pioneered by former deputy minister Mimmy Gondwe—Cassim pointed to severe administrative bottlenecks affecting Unisa beneficiaries. Students reported enduring waits of up to two weeks to receive personal care allowances, a critical sum of roughly R316 per month.
Direct discussions with NSFAS Administrator Hlengani Mathebula yielded immediate commitments to resolve the most pressing crises. Notably, this intervention helped avert the eviction of CUTT students who were jeopardized by unpaid off-campus and unaccredited accommodation allowances scheduled up to July of this year. Progress was also noted for students caught in “in-gap” investigations, which had previously resulted in suspended funding, including those enrolled in extended programs at Nelson Mandela University.
Echoing the need for structural accountability, Unisa’s acting chief financial officer, Liana Joubert, has advocated for stricter scrutiny within audited committees and a fundamental reassessment of existing funding policies to prevent recurring disbursement failures.
Despite these early operational wins, Deputy Minister Cassim emphasized that critical hurdles remain. The current NSFAS payment schedule to universities continues to throttle the flow of allowances to students, prompting Cassim to formally demand an immediate review of the timeline. Furthermore, second-semester funding for top-up students at Unisa remains in limbo due to broader budgetary shortfalls. Cassim expressed clear dissatisfaction with the administrator’s delayed submission to the ministry regarding this specific financial gap.
The pressure to clear administrative backlogs is intense. While NSFAS reported processing over 2,600 of 10,000 flagged in-gap cases, and pledged to clear an additional 1,515 Unisa-specific cases by a recent deadline, full compliance remains unverified. Cassim confirmed he would personally follow up with the administrator to ensure the progress is reflected by Monday morning. Additionally, more than 4,000 student cases are currently stalled, awaiting academic progression data from various universities. The department has formally requested that these institutions share the necessary data with the university branch to unblock the verification process.
Looking beyond immediate triage, Cassim stressed that sustainable solutions require legislative and policy overhauls. This includes necessary adjustments to allowance values during the annual NSFAS policy review process and a comprehensive review of the NSFAS Act itself.
These operational challenges are currently compounded by fresh governance controversies. The recent appointment of Bojane Segooa, the former Daybreak board chair who departed that entity under a cloud of controversy, to the NSFAS board has drawn sharp criticism. Coupled with the fact that Administrator Hlengani Mathebula’s own appointment is currently facing judicial review in the High Court, critics have drawn uneasy parallels to “state capture” tactics, questioning the shuffling of controversial figures into key positions.
Having assumed his role just over two weeks ago, Deputy Minister Cassim declined to comment on the merits of the recent board appointments. He noted that the previous board was dissolved by the Minister and the ensuing litigation is strictly sub judice. Instead, he reaffirmed his commitment to hands-on oversight, ensuring the help desk remains a viable lifeline so student grievances do not fall on deaf ears. He urged affected individuals to contact, promising relentless departmental support to hold the funding body accountable and dismantle the blockages hindering its mandate.