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NSFAS acting CEO Waseem Carrim reveals plans to tackle governance and financial crises

17 Mar 2025

Fewer than three weeks after being appointed new acting CEO of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, Carrim answers Daily Maverick’s questions about his new role.

Daily Maverick asked the new acting chief executive of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, Waseem Carrim, who was appointed on 5 March 2025, about his plans and new role.

With your background as chief executive of the National Youth Development Agency, where you led successful financial and operational reforms, what key lessons from that experience will be most applicable to NSFAS?

Building the right institutional culture – to achieve NSFAS’s mission we have to get the majority of our people to buy into the vision of what we want to achieve for young people. One leader working in isolation cannot make a difference – you need difference makers across the organisation who believe in the cause and drive solutions for its implementation.

Read more: As NSFAS finally submits its 2022/23 annual report, AG flags R60bn in irregular spending over four years

Second is building the governance frameworks that ensure accountability and checks and balances across the organisation. Last, building partnerships with key stakeholders in the ecosystem – NSFAS is not an island and its success is dependent on creating and operating in a functional ecosystem.

How do you intend to restore financial accountability and transparency within the organisation?

The work of the Special Investigating Unit and the Auditor-General of South Africa has already highlighted the challenges and root causes of those challenges. The institution will need to rebuild its supply chain management functionality from a people, process and systems perspective and ensure all its contracts are awarded in line with the Public Finance Management Act and National Treasury Regulations. Furthermore, these contractual agreements need to be performance-managed to ensure that NSFAS and the student population are deriving value for money.

Thousands of students have faced delays in receiving their allowances due to technical and governance issues at NSFAS. What immediate and long-term strategies will you implement to ensure a more efficient and reliable disbursement system?

In the short term, universities who have the capacity have been paying student allowances on NSFAS’s behalf. For TVET students NSFAS has implemented an in-house direct payment methodology, which, while not perfect, has presented a decent workaround while longer-term strategies are implemented.

In the long term the NSFAS systems need to be modernised so that the monthly payment of allowances is an automated function linked to student data and higher education institutions.

How do you plan to address these accommodation challenges and ensure students receive adequate housing support?

I have picked up that we faced two fundamental issues in student accommodation. First, there is a structural problem, in that South Africa does not have sufficient housing for students. This is amplified in some parts of the country more than others but if you were to average it out, there is only 60% to 70% of sufficient-quality student accommodation to meet the demand. NSFAS has found workarounds which include transport and accommodation allowances paid directly to students, but these are not effective long-term strategies.

Read more: Students sleep in streets as Cape Peninsula University of Technology faces housing crisis

This is a huge challenge but also an opportunity. We have repeatedly heard the message that South Africa should be turned into a construction site and we believe that construction of student accommodation to meet both current and future demand presents a huge opportunity for infrastructure development as well as the stimulation of local economies.

Second, in the current system accommodation that is available doesn’t seem to be allocated effectively and efficiently. This is in part a systems-related challenge which, using technology, can be allocated more efficiently and with greater control.

How do you plan to rebuild trust with students, institutions and other stakeholders to create a more transparent and accountable NSFAS?

I plan to be open, honest and transparent about both the challenges and opportunities with all of NSFAS’s stakeholders. NSFAS cannot fix the entirety of the post-school education and training system – there are a wide variety of stakeholders and interest groups. In this regard it is also important that we remember that we all have rights in the ecosystem, but equally we all have responsibilities. It is in holding each other accountable that we will drive real transformation in the higher education sector. DM

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