NSFAS tells Parliament it awarded tenders to VBS Bank
28 August 2019
In today’s Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, NSFAS Administrator, Dr. Randall Carolissen revealed that NSFAS awarded a tender to the defunct VBS Mutual Bank to disburse allowances to students at TVET colleges.
This is an outrageous revelation in that NSFAS has remained tight-lipped throughout the entire VBS scandal, never once being transparent over the fact that a tender probably worth millions of Rands was awarded to this corrupt entity.
For many years the Democratic Alliance (DA) has been inundated with complaints from students at TVET colleges with regards to the fact that they often receive allowances very late. Many students have gone hungry, been evicted from their accommodation or have had to resort to loan sharks because their allowances often never arrived. It is a deplorable fact that money meant to fund the education of deserving and poor students, was awarded to VBS in the form of a tender that did not even meet PFMA requirements.
NSFAS claims that they awarded the tender to VBS in 2017, and that the contract was subsequently terminated following revelations of the VBS Heist. When the DA asked the NSFAS Administrator whether anyone had been held accountable, they did not answer, and stated that the Minister at the time was made aware of the tender.