Earlier this week Sibongile Mani, the so-called “NSFAS Millionaire” was sentenced to five years in prison after an incident where R14 million was apparently put into her student account erroneously, which she allegedly spent R800 000 of.

That process is still ongoing, but the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) wants to have its say about the situation.

In a media statement NSFAS says that it refuting “misleading reports” about the situation and notes, “with great concern and disappointment, the inaccurate, irresponsible and misleading media reports regarding the involvement of NSFAS in the conviction and sentencing of Ms. Sibongile Mani”.

To make its position as clear as possible a bulleted list of points has been provided by NSFAS, which you can read below:

• “Notwithstanding the reputational damage this incident has caused NSFAS, due largely to the inaccurate reporting of this matter in the media and Parliament – NSFAS has not suffered any financial loss due to this incident.
• NSFAS had, when the incident came to light, commissioned an internal audit review of its systems and controls, and confirmed that indeed no financial loss was suffered. The outcome of this review is on record.
• Investigations were also conducted by Walter Sisulu University and DHET. The facts have revealed that the only entity that suffered financial loss due to the weakness in internal controls and systems that led to this incident was Intellimali, a service provider appointed by Walter Sisulu University.
• We wish to confirm that NSFAS did not institute any criminal proceedings against the student as there was no basis for it to do so.
• Lastly, NSFAS was approached to furnish the Department of Correctional Services with a Victim Impact Assessment Report, which was duly submitted on March 14, 2022. In this report, NSFAS reaffirmed its position on the matter as articulated above.”

For those who have not been keeping up with this situation, Mani was a student at Walter Sisulu University at the time of the apparent inciting incident, which is why it is mentioned in the third bullet above.

As this situation progresses it will be interesting to see what the final resolution of the situation is and what NSFAS will say when everything is over.