At least 10 students organised themselves and travelled to the headquarters of the study aid scheme to inquire and seek assistance with their alleged financial struggles. One of the students, Refilwe Mthombeni, tells OFM News that since January 2021, at least 200 students are yet to receive their allowances from the aid scheme. She says officials are giving them the run-around and have shown no empathy to assist them with financial matters. Mthombeni says instead they have been met by resistance from officials who allegedly called the police and private security to kick them out of the building. Students allege they travelled to Cape Town on Friday and Sunday and to date they are yet to be helped by any official.

Mthombeni says many of the students are from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds and their families cannot pay for their tuition fees, amongst others.

She says throughout the year, students have made countless attempts to be helped with their financial issues but nothing has worked in their favour to date.

She adds that recently students organised and gathered money for one student representative to travel to Cape Town and only that student was helped, with the exclusion of others.

She further adds that instead the student was told to bring the group to Cape Town but in a twist of events, they were met by unpleasantness once in Cape Town. Mthombeni says they had a fruitless meeting with the Personal Assistant of the Student Aid Scheme's Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

"So, what happened since then, we went to the police to apply to make our sitting inside the offices of NSFAS legal. But the officials instead went to the police to claim that we held them hostage and nothing like that happened, We are here and we are peaceful - all we want is to be helped with our finance matters so we can go back to our homes," Mthombeni alluded.

OFM News