NSFAS placed under administration amid governance and audit collapse

Manamela said the move was “not taken lightly” but followed months of legal assessment, governance interventions, and the exhaustion of alternative remedies as instability at NSFAS deepened. “NSFAS is one of the most important public institutions in our democratic project. It exists to ensure that young people from poor and working-class backgrounds are able to access higher education and training,” the minister said.

“For many families, NSFAS is not an abstract institution — it is the difference between exclusion and opportunity, between hope and despair. “Any instability within NSFAS therefore has implications not only for universities and TVET colleges, but for students, households, communities, the fiscus and public confidence in the ability of the democratic state to advance social justice.” It is for this reason, Manamela said, that the government has a responsibility to act when the effective functioning of the institution is “seriously undermined”. The crisis at NSFAS has been shaped by a combination of legal irregularities, governance breakdowns and institutional failures that, according to the minister, posed a direct threat to students and public confidence in the scheme.

Concerns over the legality of the NSFAS board were already present when Manamela assumed office, prompting the department to approach the courts through a self-review process over how the board had been constituted. This process unfolded alongside a spate of resignations, including that of the board chairperson, further weakening governance capacity. While interim leadership was appointed in an attempt to stabilise the institution, unresolved legal questions made it untenable to simply fill board vacancies. At the same time, NSFAS’s own reports and engagements with the department revealed deepening operational failures.