The Namibia Student Financial Assistance Fund (NSFAF) has begun its litigation process to recover approximately N.dollars 9 billion owed by about 132 000 beneficiaries since its inception in 1999.

Speaking to the media here on Tuesday, NSFAF Acting Chief Executive Officer, Kennedy Kandume, said thus far about 500 defaulters have been served with demand letters, while their names have been forwarded for black-listing.

Kandume explained that the fund is currently processing and verifying data to determine beneficiaries who are deceased and those that are not in a position of repayment, adding that thus far, the fund has processed and identified to recover N.dollars 3.6 billion.

“We are still busy cleaning out the data process. We are owed a lot of money, some of them are prominent people that we know of, and some of them are people working but they are simply not extending the appreciation and repaying so that we accumulate enough and challenges of demand and supply are somehow mitigated,” he said.

Kandume noted during the 2023 academic year, a total of 30 124 applications for funding were received, of which 21 014 were for undergraduate (degrees and diplomas), while 7 233 applied for funding at the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) level and 1 877 applied for postgraduate funding.

He indicated in terms of gender, a total of 16 951 women applied, compared to 13 173 men.

The challenge is that the demand for financial assistance always outweighs the supply [as] resources are not always enough. Thus, we resort to measures like Means-Testing to ensure that needy students also get access to higher education,” he noted.

Kandume stressed that the fund is not sustainable in the long run, therefore beneficiaries are encouraged to commit to their loan repayments.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency