Students caught in the crossfire of NSFAS payment delays

Guest: Tarik Lalla | SASCO (South African Students Congress) NEC Member

NSFAS disputes claims it owes R62 million in student accommodation arrears, but providers warn the crisis could displace thousands. SASCO’s Tarik Lalla joins Africa Melane to unpack the impact, the disputes, and the way forward.

Early Breakfast with Africa Melane is 702’s and CapeTalk’s early morning talk show. Experienced broadcaster Africa Melane brings you the early morning news, sports, business, and interviews politicians and analysts to help make sense of the world. He also enjoys chatting to guests in the lifestyle sphere and the Arts. All the interviews are podcasted for you to catch-up and listen.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You with Cape talk this this Africa Milani on early breakfast.
A meeting has taken place between NEASVAS and the Private
Student Housing Association that agreed to form a task team
which will work towards resolving the impasse involving claims to NESVAS,
the association claiming sixty two sixty four million Rand outstanding
from developers and landlords. NESVA saying that is not the amount,

(00:24):
but at least they are starting to work on that.
The NEC member for the South Afkan Students Congress, Tarik Lala,
joins me on the line. Now, taik A, very good
morning and welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Thanks Africa.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
How are you? I'm very well, Thank you very much.
How are you this Tuesday morning?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Very well?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Thanks well. NESVAS and the Private Student Housing Association are
having conversations and hopefully this joint reconciliation task team is
actually going to come to a solution. We're sitting with
students across the land who I don't know on the
twelfth of August twenty twenty five. Some of them don't
know if their accommodation is going to be paid for
the year, don't we.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yes, absolutely, The current accommodation crisis sort of continues to
expose students to dangerous and unfavorable conditions. You know, many
students are facing eviction with private landlords threatening to remove
like our peers and fellow students, given that NSS hasn't
paid these landloads. So I mean, in this particular instance,
obviously the button of responsibility from what we understand falls

(01:19):
on ns US. But I think institutions of high learning
and landloads are like entirely complicit in the challenges that
face that we face that students are facing, with institutions
continuing to refuse to vote like long term solutions such
as you know, using reserve to invest in public infrastructure,
institutional own the infrastructure, and land gods continuing to extract

(01:40):
every little you know, every last brand from students. So
I mean, regardless, within that like particular context, it does
reflect very poorly and then its fast in the capacity
to like provide for students, whether we're talking about tuition,
whether they're talking about accommodation, because at the end of
the day, I mean, students are social beings before they
are academic things.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know, errect would it not have been a requirement
for that student upon applying for residents to show that
they are a netfast student and surely the landlord then
should appreciate the frustration they're having with NESVAS and therefore,
you know, not evict the student if the accommodation fees
have not been paid.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Oh absolutely, I mean, this is this is a non starter, right,
I mean, most most private accommodations don't even accept students
until they can provide a proof of funding. But I
think second, so this it must be noted. This is
this is the sort of challenge that we have, is
that the bureaucracy is obviously necessary, but at what point
does it become too much. One of the things that

(02:40):
we tend to find here is that these processes, especially
when it relies on our institutions to provide to NSAS
information such as proof of registration and associated information, that
often then becomes a barrier of moving forward in ensuring
that the student does receive adequate funding and good support.

(03:00):
So if this task team I mean is absolutely sure
that they are going to provide religion from sposed students,
the first task of that particular task to be to
immediately freeze all eviction processes. Not a single student must
be efvicted whilst the task team begins to unpack and
identified solutions. But I think further to the task and
massage so that no students are threatened to pay using

(03:23):
their own finance.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Do you have a handle on what sort of numbers
we're talking about as students who are facing inviction.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Look, we've actually embarked in our own internal process where
we've traditionally branches obviously are the primary points of contact
with the students, and so what happens is that branches
would often collect information of affected students submlar to the
necessary finance office within our within our campuses. But what
we've also done now is SASCO National is we've stepped

(03:52):
into assist our branches and we've already collected information or
were in the process of collecting information of all students
who are affected by NSFAS. So if they is any
students who are facing similar challenges, I mean I would
encourage them to reach out to the branch because we
do have an online link and a survey where students
can then submit their information. That being said, for our
preliminary and again it's only been up for about less

(04:15):
than a week, we're already sitting obt f one hundred
five hundred students. Now it must be know this is
obviously not all exclusively accommodations and it's first issues. But
more probably speaking, that's our understanding at the moment of
the current context or situation of in its first challenges.
More generally, maybe a minority just over forty percent of
these challenges are associated with accommodation. But like I said,

(04:38):
it is very early for us to make sure that
we have a comprehensive understanding, and that's exactly why we
would want to go on the embarkment process like this way.
We do actually collect the information and then step into
just whether we submit that information to it's fast directly
or through Department of our Education and Training. That will
be decided in due course. But I mean, obviously it's
urgent and that's the process that we've undertake.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Tadik, thank you very much. The story we're paying attention to.
I'm sure we'll have a conversation in the next few
weeks or so. Tarik Lala is the National Executive Committee
member for the South African Students Congress, reflecting on how
students are being affected by this impasse between NASFAS and
the association that looks after the landlords and developers who
are providing solutions for student housing.