Nanso rejects decision to move NSFAF back to ministry

The Namibia National Students Organisation (Nanso) has rejected the integration of the students financial aid fund into the Ministry of Higher Education, Technology and Innovation. The organisation asserts that this will create administrative inefficiencies and divert funding from students.

Nanso yesterday gave their input on the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) amendment, which was passed in the National Assembly last week.

The amendment would see the NSFAF board reconstituted as a selection and advisory board under the higher education ministry. This means the staff complement of 85 people accommodated at the N$200-million NSFAF building in Windhoek would fall under the higher education ministry.

“The fund shall be a department under the ministry responsible for higher education and controlled by the board subject to the policy direction of the minister, and have the objects, functions and powers provided for in this act,” the amendment reads.

Nanso president Dorothea Nangolo told The Namibian the fund must remain an independent institution, citing concerns of administrative complications and unnecessary costs.

“We are facing a possibility where our students may be affected negatively in the process … our fear here is that the decision must be made in the best interest of our students,” Nangolo said.

One of the problems she predicts is increased spending to integrate the NSFAF board into the ministry, which would divert resources from students in need of funding.

“Why dangle the resources in our faces and direct them towards merging the institution, when those resources could be used to fund more students, to beef up the capacity of the fund, to sort out the administrative loopholes in the fund and so forth?” Nangolo asked.

The Nanso president believes this will complicate time-sensitive decision-making processes.

“When the NSFAF becomes a wing or goes under the ministry, it means that most of the decisions or critical decisions that essentially the NSFAF board was making would then be decisions that the Cabinet was making,” she said.

NSFAF acting chief executive Kennedy Kandume yesterday confirmed that they were part of the discussions for the amendment when it was in bill format.

“Yes, we are aware of the [amendment] and we were duly consulted. In fact, we had inputs on the bill,” he said.

MINISTERIAL CONTROL

The amendment stipulates that the selection and advisory board will “advise the minister on all selection and award policy-related issues and incidental matters”.

It states that the minister under the higher education portfolio will have to approve which local and foreign institutions are eligible for students who have been granted loans and scholarships.

The board will also have the power to borrow money “on such terms and conditions as may be approved by the minister with the concurrence of the minister responsible for finance”.

During the 2024 academic year, the fund approved 22 339 out of 31 144 loan applications.

NSFAF WOES

The plan to restructure the fund has been in the works since 2017 when higher education minister Itah Kandjii-Murangi said the fund would become a directorate in her ministry as per former president Hage Geingob’s wishes.
The NSFAF has, in the past, struggled to collect on loans. In 2023, The Namibian reported that the fund recovered less than one percent of debt owed by former beneficiaries between 2018 and 2023. The entity recovered N$17.2 million of its N$20 million target for the 2023/2024 financial year.

Namibian Sun in 2013 reported that the higher education ministry told the parliamentary committee on public accounts that they struggle with defaulters who simply ignore letters of demand sent to them.

The ministry went as far as attempting to establish cooperation with the finance ministry’s directorate of inland revenue to trace those registered as taxpayers. This attempt was not successful.

Another local daily, New Era, reported in 2018 that the higher education ministry said it had no capacity or could not be capacitated to handle the magnitude of the task of serving all needy Namibian students.