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Johnathan Paoli
THE Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has called for the resignation of Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande and chairperson of the Nsfas board Ernest Khosa.
This follows the release by OUTA of voice recordings of two meetings between Khosa and a representative of a service provider which revealed how service providers allegedly paid millions of rand in kickbacks to Nzimande and Khosa, as well as at least R1 million to the SACP, in return for tenders and protection for service providers.
Nsfas has been dogged by controversies and last year its CEO Andile Nongogo was fired after allegations of corruption had surfaced involving four service providers who were awarded tenders irregularly. The service providers often failed to meet their obligations resulting in missed payments for student fees, accommodation and allowances among others.
The four service providers awarded the tender for facilitating direct payments to students in July 2023, included Coinvest Africa (Pty) Ltd, Tenet Technology (Pty) Ltd, Ezaga Holdings (Pty) Ltd and Norraco Corporation (Pty) Ltd.
Earlier this week, Nesfas admitted that at least 20 000 students countrywide were still waiting for 2023 allowances to be paid.
OUTA’s Investigations Manager Rudie Heyneke said the voice recordings have already been shared with the SIU, which has been investigating corruption at NSFAS since 2022 and that there needed to be a thorough investigation into the vast web of corruption in the higher education sector, which OUTA’s various reports and these recordings have revealed.
Heyneke said it was unethical, highly irregular and against all the principles of good governance for the chairperson of the board to meet with service providers and request input on board decisions and that it was unnecessary for Khosa to meet these people and to update them on internal matters and request their input for the way forward.
“It is clear that the students are the last thing on the minds of the minister, the chairperson, NSFAS management and the service providers who were appointed to serve the students. With elections around the corner, we remind students that they should not allow self-serving leaders with questionable integrity to remain in powerful positions, or for similarly tainted leaders to be elected to those positions,” Heyneke said.
Heyneke said that the findings of the Werksmans’ report vindicated OUTA’s findings on Nongogo’s involvement with the awarding of tenders to Coinvest, Ezaga, Norraco and Tenet Technology (also known as Tenetech) and that the NGO was satisfied with the outcome of the investigation.
In addition, Heyneke said that the NGO was expected to open a criminal complaint against Nzimande, Khosa and Ntumba and hoped that the SAPS would thoroughly investigate the corruption charges that have been submitted.
Lastly, OUTA called on Nedbank to thoroughly investigate their client Coinvest and reconsider their sponsorship.
Whilst the allegations OUTA has made against the Higher Education Minister have not been independently verified, Nzimande has yet to respond to questions sent to his spokesperson.
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