Cape Town - The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) held its Student Accommodation Roadshow, in an attempt to gauge and iron out some of the challenges faced by landlords of private student accommodation since the implementation of the NSFAS Student Accommodation pilot project.
The Western Cape leg of the roadshow took place yesterday at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Bellville Campus, Saretec Building.
Two previous workshops were held in uMhlanga, Durban and Richards Bay before moving to the Western Cape.
A second group of landlords will be attending day-two of the roadshow at the same venue, today with an anticipated 100 people to be in attendance.
NSFAS administrator Freeman Nomvalo said: “The roadshow mainly is about listening to accommodation providers and learning what they are facing. The challenges we are trying to deal with is the flow of information between ourselves and institutions to ensure that we’ve got credible information to make payments on time and make payments as efficiently as possible. The problems that we had experienced were late payments and sometimes no payment for legitimate students.”
During a media briefing on August 6, Nomvalo said NSFAS processed bulk catch-up payments of accommodation allowances in the past two months for legitimate claims and as at July 31, disbursement for private student accommodation reached R1 billion.
He noted that while this was done, there were still some landlords aggrieved and that the roadshows would be part of the interventions to address this.
While the flow of information was identified as a problem, NSFAS systems also contributed to this issue.
“Obviously systems do contribute to some degree, systems are not as efficient but the biggest problem is the flow of information. When the information is not reliable, it then leads to delays because you have to verify, you have to validate what you are paying. You must pay a student who deserves to be paid for.”
Following the deliberations emanating from the roadshows, a report will be drafted on the issues raised and submitted to the task team for recommendations to be made to NSFAS.
An accommodation provider and part of the task team, Jean Claude Kipinde said the main issue arising when the task team was first formed was related to payments.
“That was the first issue they tackled in that meeting, they already gave a payment date which they upheld, they were a day or two late but for the most part have been covering a lot of the regions, now the second issue that we’re working through is the systems.”
Other issues are situational-based, such as transport and safety of students.
Cape Argus