The East London Regional Court has convicted Sibongile Mani (31), a student from Walter Sisulu University (WSU), on charges of theft of more than R800 000 from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
Hawks spokesperson, Yolisa Mgolodela, said that during the 2017 academic year, Mani, who was a student at WSU, was allocated R18 370 per annum towards her tuition fees and R14 000 per annum towards her food allowance by NSFAS.
“Both tuition and food allowance were directly paid to WSU by NSFAS. Intellimali managed the allowances on behalf of institutions, funders and sponsors. Intellimali managed on behalf of WSU the food and book allowances of students who received NSFAS financial assistance,” said Mgolodela. She added that WSU provided Intellimali monthly with a special spread sheet of all allowances to load onto the Intellimali system. Mgolodela said this spread sheet provided the student number, the type of allowance, the amount and instruction on the number of months the students should receive items were prohibited.
“The food allowance was uploaded onto the student’s registration as credit on behalf of WSU on monthly basis. The accused was allocated R14 000 a month by WSU as the food allowance to be paid into her student card for the 2017 academic year. On June 1, 2017, Mani was erroneously credited with R14 million. She immediately embarked on a lavish spending spree where during the period between June 2017 and August 14, 2017, which according to the probing of East London based Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team of the Hawks, revealed that she had spent more than R818 000 in the Eastern Cape, Johannesburg and Centurion.”
On August 14, 2017, the error was detected and her student card immediately stopped from making any further purchases and the matter was reported to the Hawks for probing which led to her arrest.
Mgolodela confirmed that the matter has been remanded to March 8 for a presentence report by the probation officer and correctional supervision report.
