Deputy Speaker, Minister of Higher Education and Training, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, hon members and ladies and gentlemen, section 29(1)(a) and (b) of the Constitution states that:
Everyone has the right -
a) to a basic education, including adult basic education; and to further education:
b) which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible.
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS, was established by a statute, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme Act, Act 56 of 1999. The role that this scheme has played in ensuring access to further and higher education and training cannot be overlooked. Since its inception, the NSFAS has ensured that the right provided for in the Constitution is progressively realised. The scheme seeks to impact on South Africa's historically skewed students by providing a sustainable financial aid system that enables academically deserving and financially needy students to meet their own and the country's development needs.
Hon members, before 2007, the scheme provided financial aid to students in higher education institutions only. However, in 2007 the Education Laws Amendment Act was passed. This expanded the responsibilities of NSFAS to include the granting of financial aid to students at FET colleges through what is called the further education and training colleges bursary scheme.
In debating the Higher Education Laws Amendment Bill, I will focus on the insertion of section 17A(1) in Chapter 2(A) of the Act. This section deals with the appointment of an administrator to take over the management, governance and administration of the NSFAS, as well as to perform the functions of the NSFAS, if financial or other maladministration is detected or the board requests that an administrator be appointed.
The ANC is pleased with the insertion of the above clause because, as it currently stands' the National Student Financial Aid Scheme Act does not have any provisions that give the Minister the power to remove the board, or the power to appoint new board members. The only power the Minister had, as revealed by the findings of the ministerial committee on the review of the scheme, was to persuade individual board members to vacate their positions, and if they refused to do so, the Minister did not have any recourse. We are also pleased to see that the recommendations of the ministerial committee are being implemented to improve the efficiency of the scheme.
In order to illustrate the importance of this insertion, I would like to give the following illustration. Unfortunately, hon Dexter has left, but for his information and also for the information of the House, the scheme has, since 2008, been plagued with many problems. Therefore, I must inform hon Dexter that the problems in the NSFAS were there before the Minister was actually the Minister of Higher Education and Training.
The scheme has been plagued by the high attrition of chairpersons of the board, as well as of chief executive officers. From 2008 to February 2010 the scheme had three chief executive officers and it has been without a chief executive officer since late February this year. It was reported by the newly appointed chairperson of the board that they had to terminate the chief executive officer's contract for undisclosed reasons and that the matter was with the courts. Similarly, the scheme has had three board chairpersons in the same number of years. From this, one is able to see that there were problems in the organisation which prevented the senior management from focusing on the core issues within the organisation.
Hon Dexter, again it is for this reason that we are saying that a situation such as this needed the Minister's intervention in terms of what is envisaged by the insertion of section 17A(1). However, due to the lack of a provision in the Act in this regard, no serious interventions could be made. This led to a disclaimer of opinion and matters of emphasis in the 2009-10 annual report by the Auditor-General.
Matters flagged in the previous audit reports were not dealt with due to the existence of conflicts between senior managers and management. These conflicts hindered the efficient running of the scheme. Again the review committee made various findings. Among these findings were inappropriate appointments to senior management positions, the absence of a performance management system, poorly defined job descriptions, senior management vacancies, temporary appointments and poor management of the internal information flow, which all contributed to the inefficiencies within the