Get Nsfas right before even thinking about NHI

Probably the easiest job in the world is giving other people’s money away. If you can’t even get that right, some introspection is in order.

The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas) has become a joke. After kinda sorting out the student housing mess at the beginning of the year, today there are issues of students’ pocket money. Naturally, as a result, things must burn. Protests in Pretoria. Looting in Mangaung. Police skirmishes in Limpopo.

Nsfas protests

If you’ve taken your eye off of the taxi wars in the Western Cape to take a look at Nsfas issues, it makes for provocative entertainment. My personal favourite was a dude at the University of the Free State (UFS) using a bottle of mustard positioned against his crotch to squirt yellow sauce all over the walls. That’ll show them!

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It’s easy to say that the violence is unnecessary but maybe we should ponder on what caused the upset that led to the violence in the first place. How is it possible to screw up giving money away? The lotto does it. Noot vir Noot does it. Even your obscure local radio station will have a cute R500 giveaway from time to time. That’s all money that they generate themselves. The only way you could make it easier is if you give them the money to give away.

You know who has it that easy? Nsfas. All R46 billion of its budget from the Department of Higher Education is given to them, nje. Why they believe they need service providers to do the one job they and their almost 400 employees are tasked with, I’ll never know.

What I do know is that it is concerning when a state shows incompetence in such a simple initiative. What happens when there’s another task with a higher budget?

I wish I had the arrogance that allowed me to sit in my office and think, “I know I’m bad at my job, but let me do other, more intense jobs while I’m at it”.

Tertiary education a sign of poor governance

Free higher education is a great idea. I’ve written about it several times. Access to public healthcare is important too. Avoid the temptation of calling any criticism on the policy as elitist, racist or any form of superiority complex. It’s reasonable and frankly a civic duty to be critical of bad governmental policy.

ALSO READ: Students march to Union Buildings: ‘Voetsek Nsfas, fix your sh*t!

What’s strange is that in higher education, a lot of the research, if not all, is based on data. The data we have of the performance of the South African government in the last 15 years is indicative of bad performance (except, of course, the 2010 World Cup). If one did a thesis, there’s quite a bad story to tell and it’s not like it’s getting any more promising, despite the promises.

State debt servicing costs nearly eight times the budget of Nsfas, which translates to $1 a day per citizen. We should then be asking why we’re borrowing money to spend on services that we often end up not receiving.

Cut government initiatives

It makes no sense to keep creating governmental initiatives when the many others that came before keep flopping. We love talking about our futures. That’s why people study in the fist place; for a better future. How much better can that future be when after VAT, income tax and rates what’s left has to be spent on private services because the state services are dysfunctional.  

Don’t be alarmed though. It’s not like you can’t go to Russia for treatment if you fall ill.

How about cutting government initiatives by one a year until the remaining ones are functional. Then we can have that talk about NHI. Until then, take heed of the mustard ejaculation. You can’t offer something and not follow through. If the failure is in hospitals though, the problem won’t be mustard and you’ll end up wishing it was ketchup.

ALSO READ: ‘Conniving mafias’ posing a security threat to higher education sector, says Nsfas