Albertina Nakale
Windhoek
The Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) has assured current beneficiaries that the fund is busy processing N$75 million that was made available as a partial payment towards the outstanding refunds from non-tuition fees.
The fund owes a total number of 18,576 students their refunds in non-tuition fees.
Recently, treasury has stepped in with an additional N$150 million to NSFAF, which had run out of funds to guarantee payments to students enrolling for the 2018 academic year.
There are a lot of NSFAF loan holders who complained that the fund did not give their full refunds for 2017,
saying they only received N$3,000 each.
Olavi Hamwele, NSFAF’s chief human capital and corporate affairs officer yesterday said the concerned students are from the University of Namibia (9,010), the Namibia University of Science and Technology (3,154), the International University of Management (1,731), hospitality training centres (329), vocational training centres (2,344), smaller institutions (1,498) and postgraduates (510).
He revealed the fund is in the process to pay them an amount of N$4,280 each in addition to the already paid N$3,000.
Hamwele said a total number of 2,344 students from the vocational training centres will each get N$1,541.10, while 510 postgraduates will receive an amount of N$8,193.77 each. He promised the money would be paid between tomorrow and Friday next week.
“These funds will be on the NAM-MIC student payment cards between Thursday, 15 February 2018 and Friday 23 February 2018. The remaining will be effected immediately once the funds are available,” he noted.
Regarding international students, he said, these beneficiaries have all been paid their refunds, therefore do not form part of these groups.
Equally, he announced that the fund has brought forward the online application from the initial date of the 28th of this month to this Friday.
This, he says, is to allow for verification and adjudication processes to start early. “This change is informed by our dashboard, a tool designed to track applications launched and completed,” he further stated.
He indicated by yesterday afternoon they had received 11,799 applications.
These include undergraduate Grade 12 students enrolled at local and foreign institutions, post Grade 12, postgraduates, mature age students as well as vocational education trainees.
Moreover, he said, informed by 2017 Grade 12 results that indicate about 8,000 learners are eligible for admissions at tertiary institutions, the fund is confident that most of the eligible potential applicants have launched and
completed their applications.
He said about 3,000 applicants are from other streams such the Namibia College of Open Learning, potential learners that took a break from academic work for various reasons or working class that pursues post graduate studies.
The fund apologised to its stakeholders and particularly applicants who are yet to submit their applications for
online application.
He said those that intend to apply to do so latest Friday, saying they have started spreading the message through the radio in all vernacular languages as well as through the fund’s social media sites.