Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

NSFAF washes its hands over N$1.8bn

Home Front Page News NSFAF washes its hands over N$1.8bn

Kuzeeko Tjitemisa

Windhoek-The Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) yesterday washed its hands over an unaccounted N$1.8 billion the Ministry of Education disbursed to NSFAF between 2007 and 2013, saying NSFAF only came into existence in 2013.

NSFAF CEO Hilya Nghiwete said at the time of the transfer, apart from physical files, no breakdown was submitted.
“Normal procedure would have been to compile the balances per student using each file but this would have taken a very long time considering the 73,353 files involved,” she said.

“At the time, this amount was also not known, as the N$1,792,303,100 was later deducted using the CEO section in the annual report contained in 2014/15,” she explained.

She said due to the absence of the list, which could be audited, no loans balance could be included in the financial statement for the year ended March 31, 2014, but rather issued a qualified audit opinion, which highlighted that the financial statement has been qualified due to non-availability of a list, which could be audited.

Nghiwete was responding to questions the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts posed to NASFAF here during a public hearing.

The hearing lasted almost four hours.
The standing committee wanted to know how the N$1.8 billion in students disbursements from the government was accounted for as at April 1, 2013.

The committee chaired by ‘No Nonsense’ Mike Kavekotora also grilled Nghiwete and her team, which included the newly appointed board chairperson Jerome Mutumba, vice-chairperson Dr Christina Swart-Opperman and the NSFAF chief financial officer on why recoveries made on loans were treated as revenue, a service never recognised in the books of accounts.

The committee also wanted to know why these recoveries were not spilt between principal and interest; why capital was treated as revenue and how come NSFAF recognised it as revenue.

Nghiwete responded by saying that since initial balances were included in the financial statements as from April 1, 2013, subsequent recoveries do not have a capital balance from which they can be netted off.

But, she said, they needed to be accounted for; hence, they have been recorded as revenue for subsequent financial years.

She said the issues relating to the genetic approach taken by NSFAF in recording its financial information and issues including, among others, no indication whether the amount received/paid out was a grant or a loan and some beneficiaries were minor at the time of signing the
contracts.