EASTERN CAPE NEWS - Employees of the National Student Fund Aid Scheme (NSFAS) have opened a case of theft against a former board member for allegedly stealing laptops earmarked for under-resourced schools in the Eastern Cape.

The board member, who was apparently leading the scheme’s delegation, allegedly kept ten laptops instead of delivering them to the already identified schools during the Eastern Cape Donation Drive, in March 2026.

NSFAS says there were 30 laptops earmarked for distributions to six high schools, with each receiving five laptops for communal use.

“It is shocking that particularly a board member, of an organisation designed to alleviate hardships from economically deprived communities, would be responsible for such an act,” says Professor Hlengani Mathebula, who was appointed as NSFAS administrator on 4 May this year.

He says he is pleased that NSFAS’s employees have decided to pursue justice on behalf of the learners.

Mathebula says the scheme must only be associated with a certain calibre of leaders and employees, as the impact of sleaze has a devastating impact on the youth who are our country’s future.

“This act by our colleagues is exemplary. It testifies to the fact that we are turning the corner as an organisation, as employees are reclaiming their organisation from the grubby hands of those who have been manipulating it for their own self-enrichment while our children suffered the indignity wrought on by poverty.

“It is appalling to learn that someone [allegedly] used his position of privilege, being a board member, to steal from the same needy children. It doesn’t get worse than that,” says Mathebula.

Mathebula also in the crosshairs

But Mathebula himself has been the focus of an expose by Daily Maverick. 

The publication obtained a trail of invoices that allegedly reveal how NSFAS double-booked two hotel stays in Cape Town for Mathebula at the end of May - qualifying as fruitless expenditure of public funds.

Mathebula is also taken to task about the appointment of four advisors at a cost of R10 million while students struggle to make ends meet with their NSFAS allowances. 

Click here to read the Daily Maverick article.

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