Universities at risk of bad debts due to NSFAS failures – USAf CEO

Clarence Ford speaks to Dr Phethiwe Matutu, CEO of Universities South Africa (USAf).

Listen to the interview in the audio below.

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) board has been placed under administration.

This comes after the fund had been failing to deliver on its mandate and had been riddled with allegations of corruption.

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Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande said the former board had failed to implement recommendations made by Werksmans Attorneys to improve it efficacy.

Matutu says Universities South Africa (USAf) is now going to focus on working with the new administrator of NSFAS, Freeman Nomvalo, to address the numerous challenges facing universities.

“We have got a number of issues which have got financial implications for universities that we need to deal with with that administrator.”

- Dr Phethiwe Matutu, CEO of USAf

She says the issues with NSFAS have had an enormous impact on students and universities.

Some universities accepted students that had applied for NSFAS but have still not had their funding finalised.

“These students are going to cause universities to have bad debts… that is an urgent issue.”

- Dr Phethiwe Matutu, CEO of USAf

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the interview.