REPAYMENT OF GOVT SCHOLARSHIPS: SHOCKING ANOMALIES UNEARTHED

MBABANE – Shocker!

This is the word that could best describe the anomalies that were discovered by this publication regarding the repayment of government scholarships.
Discrepancies have been noted regarding the actual amount to be paid by owing former students.
In fact, some former students will pay less than required while others will pay more, an oversight that government is working on.
In a bid to recover approximately E1.5 billion from the beneficiaries, government, through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, engaged three companies; namely Trans Union Swaziland (Leading firm), DataNet and SV Mdladla and Associates, for the responsibility of collecting the outstanding monies.

Government, on record, spent E765 million on tertiary level scholarships from the year 2010 to 2012, while the percentage of those who were actually awarded has been dwindling. The demand for scholarships has superseded the resources available.
The ministry, in 2013, implemented the Pre-service Tertiary Education and Training (PTET) Loan Policy for the Student Study Loan (SSL) and Student Assistance Finance (SAF).
SSL covers registration, tuition, stationery, textbooks and other educational expenses, while the SAF caters for living expenses such as cost of meals, accommodation, personal allowances and other study related costs.
The loans will come from a semi-autonomous revolving pre-service Tertiary Education and Training Loan Fund due to be established.

Before the establishment of the policy, government scholarships had structures to provide a 50 per cent loan for tuition and then 50 per cent for living expenses.
The King’s Order in Council of 1977 was the only piece of legislation that governed issuance of scholarships.
This, according to the policy, meant that government only expected a repayment of half the total spent on an individual’s tertiary education.

With a significant number of the beneficiaries of the scholarships unable to repay the loan component due to high unemployment rates, underemployment and lack of a robust tracking system, the recovery of loans has been minimal.
Since then, it has been difficult for government to provide scholarships to the ever increasing numbers of students who qualified for them.
It was discovered that those owing could be repaying less or more than they should as seen in some documents in our possession.
According to the documents, some students who were studying towards a Commercial Teaching Diploma in 2008/09 had a charge of E500 each added to their respective accounts.

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