Print article   email story

Related Articles Helping students get fraudulent loans 'done out of love'

Gershwin Chuenyane

TWO female students allegedly prostituted themselves to obtain National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) loans at a top university.

City Press has learnt that Zamokuhle Xaba and Patricia Khanye slept with two financial aid bureau officials of the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) who allegedly promised to sort out their financial woes.

In February 2006, Mandla Ngwenya and a colleague reportedly promised Xaba and Khanye, then aged 22 and 24 respectively, that they would sort out their problems for sexual favours.

TUT’s internal audit report into NSFAS loan irregularities, which includes copies of Xaba and Khanye’s affidavits and Xaba’s letter to the financial aid bureau head, deputy vice-chancellor, dean of students and campus director, painted a damning picture of the officials.

According to the report, they had sex at Ngwenya’s house in Soshanguve.

In her affidavit, Xaba said: “I agreed to have sex with him because I couldn’t go back home without finishing my studies and I had no other choice because my father was sick and was no longer working.

“He didn’t have the money to pay for my fees.”

In addition, Xaba, who had sex with both men, allegedly paid a senior student connected to the two officials a R1 800 bribe so that they would amend her results to enable her to qualify for a financial loan.

All these efforts hit a brick wall and the two students failed to register for the 2006 academic year, the report said.

Xaba, a second year student, had failed to pass 60% of her environmental health diploma subjects as required to qualify for the relevant bursary, the report said.

Khanye, an education diploma student, was suspended for a year for examination irregularities, said the report.

Xaba wrote a letter to the financial aid bureau head and executive dean of humanities, Dr Stanley Mukhola.

In the letter she complained about the bribe she had paid and sexual favours she performed for empty promises.

The letter reads: “I am hereby lodging a complaint against two financial aid bureau staff members, Mandla Ngwenya and his colleague, who sold the NSFAS to me at the cost of R1 800 earlier this year because I was not qualifying, the reason being that I had failed most of my subjects last year.

“I slept with both of them at Mandla’s house ... later they refused to take my agreement form. And I realised ... the letter was fake. I can testify on this issue because there are many students who have paid in exchange for the student bursary.

“I recommend that you immediately investigate this issue and any hesitation will lead me to take further steps against TUT and go to the media.”

Ngwenya is due to face a disciplinary hearing on May 20 on charges of misconduct and amending students’ results.

He did not comment.

Ngwenya’s colleague at the financial aid bureau left TUT at the end of his contract in June 2006.

Nothing could be traced to him because his name was not on the system.

The matter was reported to the rector and vice-chancellor, Professor Errol Tyobeka, who instructed TUT’s internal audit department to conduct a probe.

The probe covered the period 2003 to 2007 and netted five officials implicated in a scam in which NSFAS bursaries were sold to students at the Soshanguve campus.

It also emerged from the investigation that financial aid bureau officials were, for a fee, amending the matric results of students who did not qualify for a NSFAS bursary.

A student’s matric results have to add up to a minimum of six points to qualify for such a bursary, said TUT chief internal auditor Vincent Dlamini.

But these officials would, for instance, charge R1 500 if a student needed 0.5 points to qualify.

They would change a standard grade symbol to higher grade or change a symbol from E to D for a fee ranging from R1 500 to R3 000, Dlamini said in the report.

The scam was so rife that the financial aid bureau officials allegedly had more than 20 agents, mostly senior students, assisting them.

Subscribe to the print edition of City Press