By Obrein Simasiku
WINDHOEK – Students at the University of Namibia (Unam) agitated over delayed repayments by the university after a couple of times’ assurance about repayment were finally paid last Friday.
Unam students previously threatened to demonstrate over delayed refunds for monies usually left over from the study subsidy from the state.
This newspaper understands the refunds were supposed to be paid before December and when this did not happen Unam students took to Facebook where they posted furious comments to express their dissatisfaction over the delayed students’ refunds.
Comments flourished particularly on Unam’s student representative council Facebook page threatening to boycott the university’s closing ceremony and they further questioned management for delaying the payments, stating that the refund problem is a recurring issue.
Vincent Shimutwikileni who was among the disgruntled students said students were being pushed left, right and centre without a proper response to what was delaying the refunds.
Unam spokesman John Haufiku admitted to refund delays saying it was beyond their control as they only recently received the financial subsidy from the government.
However he gave the assurance that all students had received their refunds by last Friday and said for those that did not receive theirs it was no longer the university’s problem.
“Without the government subsidy we run the risk of compromising the university’s operations if we issue refunds to students with our last operational budget,” he said.
Haufiku further said another obstacle is the fact that some students apply at the last minute thus overwhelming the finance department.
“It is out of our control and they (students) should fix the matter with the Namibia Student Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) because some of them did not sign award contracts,” he added.
When asked how the university hopes to resolve the refund dilemma he said the university is working hard to improve their systems, reiterating that previously the university used to issue cheques to refund students.
“We are slowly moving away from that, instead we are now using electronic fund transfer (EFT) as a method of payment, which has significantly improved processing time, therefore students must take note that systems cannot change overnight, it is a gradual process and they must take due consideration of the fact that they cannot apply today and expect their money the same day as the university has many other equally important financial transactions to execute within a limited time,” said Haufiku.