The University of Johannesburg (UJ) has returned some R311 million to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) in unallocated funds that were meant to be disbursed to students between 2016 and 2021.

According to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), the monies were for qualifying students who either changed institutions or deregistered from the university.

“The unallocated funds were supposed to have been collected by NSFAS at the end of each year from institutions of higher learning through reconciliation. However, the SIU’s investigation revealed that NSFAS failed to design and implement controls that would ensure that there is an annual reconciliation between the funds disbursed to the institutions and the funded list of registered students.

“To remedy this, NSFAS has recently appointed a service provider to assist them perform this reconciliation in a process called close out reporting,” the SIU said.

The corruption busting unit called on higher learning institutions to return any monies that were not disbursed to students.

“The payment made by UJ brings the total amount received from institutions of higher learning to approximately R349.3 million since the inception of the NSFAS investigation in September 2022.

“The SIU encourages all institutions of higher learning to come forward and pay back unallocated funds that are due to NSFAS,” the SIU said. – SAnews.gov.za

Source: South African Government News Agency