The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has called on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) college students to submit their personal bank accounts for the payment of living allowances.
Bank accounts belonging to parents will not be accepted by NSFAS for paying allowances to students. This was detailed by the scheme’s administrator, Freeman Nomvalo, at a media briefing on Monday.
Nomvalo said 211,591 TVET college students’ bank accounts of have been verified.
A total of 7,160 failed the verification
“A total of 7,160 failed the verification checks, for various reasons. These include bank accounts that do not belong to students. For example, a parent’s bank account,” he said.
“I want to call upon all students who have already uploaded their personal banking details. Those who have received a notification from myNSFAS portal indicating that the verification has failed. They are urged to please resubmit their correct banking details on the portal.
“I must emphasise that the banking details provided must belong to the student. This is to enable NSFAS to verify these and minimise potential risks,” he said.
NSFAS announced at the end of April that it will be paying TVET college students allowances directly into their bank accounts.
“I’m pleased to announce that the payments that are currently being made are directly to students’ bank accounts as announced on April 26.
Only for TVET students
“We have requested all TVET students who do not have bank accounts to open one with banks of their own choice. This is to avoid delays in the payment of their allowances,” he said.
Wongani Mgwali is the secretary general of the SA Technical Vocational Education and Training Students Association (Satvetsa). It represents students from 50 public colleges. He told Sunday World that the majority of the 7,160 students said they uploaded the wrong account numbers by mistake.
“The system did not allow them to correct the error. So, after the verification has failed, it [the system] gives the option to re-upload them. We are hoping students will do that during this week,” he said.
The payment arrangement is only for TVET students, said NSFAS. University students will continue to receive allowances through their institutions until July.
Nomvalo said NSFAS has begun the process of terminating the contracts of direct payment service providers. These are eZaga Holdings, Coinvest, Norraco and Tenet Technologies.
Previous payment service providers terminated
“The process to terminate these contracts has commenced with the filing of the necessary court papers on May 24. In the termination of these contracts, NSFAS collaborated with the Special Investigation Unit. Through our lawyers, we have communicated this decision to all the payment service providers today [Monday].”
The direct payment system was first piloted at TVET colleges in 2022. Satvetsa rang alarm bells on the challenges with the payment system. It said the service providers did not have the capacity to do the job.
