DA requests SIU investigation of all NSF projects

29 July 2024

The DA calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to proclaim a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation into all the projects that have been undertaken by the National Skills Fund (NSF) to date. Last year, the DA made a similar call, but given former Higher Education Minister Dr Blade Nzimande’s efforts to keep the Nexus Forensic Services Report confidential, it is hardly a surprising that our pleas were not heeded.

While the SIU indicated that it had drawn up papers requesting a proclamation that would allow the unit to investigate the NSF, it seems the President has yet to issue one.

The Nexus Forensic Services investigated 10 NSF projects, which revealed corruption, lack of good governance, unfilled vacant posts and poor financial systems and project management processes in place at NSF to the tune of R5 billion – more than the whole budget for the NSF for the financial year.

These projects might just be the tip of the iceberg. Given the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’s (OUTA) exposé allegedly tying Minister Nzimande and his South African Communist Party (SACP) to corruption at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), it is clear that the Department needs to investigated top to bottom now that it's free from Minister Nzimande’s influence.

The Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Dr Mimmy Gondwe, also recently highlighted the fact that the Department returned R580 million to National Treasury in the past two years – money which should have benefited poor students who depend on state funding to acquire tertiary education.

We hope that the new Government of National Unity (GNU) Minister of Higher Education, Nobuhle Nkabane, will not follow in the footsteps of her predecessor. We hope that with the help of her Deputy Ministers, she will put the wellbeing of students first and root out the corruption that seems rife in her Department.

Issued by Desiree van der Walt, DA Deputy Spokesperson on Higher Education, 29 July 2024