Students fed up with empty promises

Students and union bodies demonstrated outside Gert Sibande College recently, vehemently displaying their dissatisfaction with the slew of empty promises from authorities. According to the information at hand, students are irked, amongst other issues, by the fact that students have still not received their funds from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), despite several promises that payments would be made. One demonstrator also mentioned that students are gearing up to partake in the protests regarding the recent fatality at WITS.

“It has been months, and we have not received a single cent from the promised grant. The department apparently made funds available, but we are yet to see it. We also have bills and expenses, and we are struggling,” an upset demonstrator stated. The NSFAS has repeatedly come under fire for mismanagement of the funds, and has even been slammed as a failure by political figure heads.

Many institutions are struggling to put out fires regarding the grants, as the NSFAS comes under scrutiny time and time again, having paid out an approximate R2 billion to “wrong students”, as well as individuals who are not even registered for the grant, or as students at any institution. The Tribune ePaper contacted the GS College head office media liaison, and despite several attempts, no response had been received at the time of publication. GS College’s Ermelo campus also provided no response, instead referring enquiries to head office.