Africa-Press – Namibia. THE chairperson of the parliamentary standing committee on public accounts, Dudu Murorwa, believes the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) ignored the early warning signs of the struggles they are currently going through.
The NSFAF management appeared before the public accounts committee (PAC) this week to explain why their financials are not in order. “It is either you ignored the early warning signs or you bullied it,” Murorua said, pointing to the fact that the fund could not produce financial statements for the period before 2010 to 2013.
Deputy auditor general Goms Menette questioned NSFAF management’s failure to bring forward an opening balance for 2013. “What was going through your mind as an accounting office during that time? It would be difficult for us as auditors to ignore it. Is it that you wrote it off?”
Vice chairperson of the NSFAF board Stephen Tjiuoro said the board did not approve any amount to be written off during that period. The committee grilled NSFAF CEO Kennedy Kandume and his team on missing balances, the lack of accounting principles and their debt collection process.
NSFAF BUILDING Kandume told the PAC that NSFAF had been saving money from treasury allocations for the period between 2015 and 2017, to build its current headquarters in Eros.
The controversy surrounding the NSFAF building started when the Office of the Auditor General said the construction was done without treasury’s approval. This was confirmed by then minister of finance Calle Schlettwein, in a meeting with student leaders.
The massive building consists of two office wings separated by an open central court. The building comprises a lower ground parking area, offices on both the ground and first floor, a gymnasium area on the second floor, as well as the Student Care Centre with separate auditorium and cafeteria. In addition, alongside the main office building is a multi-purpose hall and day care centre, which serve as income generators.
PAC ON NGHIWETE Kandume told the committee that former CEO Hilya Nghiwete’s disciplinary charges include maladministration and failure to maintain the loan book.
This list of charges is endless, said the fund’s spokesperson Fillemon Wise Immanuel on Wednesday. Nghiwete has faced allegations of conflict of interest.
At the start of the hearing, Murorua asked NSFAF management to explain what went wrong during the time Nghiwete was at the helm of the organisation, as more than half of them were at the fund during her tenure.
“The things we are discussing are from long ago. They are things your board could have investigated and found answers for,” he told Tjiuoro. DEBT COLLECTION MISSION
Kandume said in 2011, they requested that tertiary institutions collate the names of the students who were funded by NSFAF. In addition, they also requested bank statements to trace down the beneficiaries of loans.
Following the announcement last month that it would publish the names of loan repayment defaulters in local newspapers, some beneficiaries came forward to make payment arrangements. However, NSFAF still plans to publish the names of more than 300 loan holders, dating back to 1998, the fund said in a notice released two weeks ago.
Defaulters are urged to get in contact with NSFAF within the month, or face litigation or being blacklisted. The fund previously said it has the option to obtain court orders to go after defaulters’ assets if need be. Some 131 000 Namibians have been funded by NSFAF between 1997 and 2019 to the tune of N$7,5 billion in loans.
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