{"id":30778,"date":"2026-04-04T10:29:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T08:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=30778"},"modified":"2026-04-04T10:29:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T08:29:20","slug":"sa-deputy-minister-demands-action-over-nsfas-ghost-payments","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-deputy-minister-demands-action-over-nsfas-ghost-payments\/","title":{"rendered":"SA Deputy Minister demands action over NSFAS ghost payments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa\u2019s (SA) Deputy Higher Education Minister, Dr Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has called for the arrest of those responsible for the ghost payments of student funding to more than 800 deceased students.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The comments follow findings in the Auditor-General\u2019s 2024\/25 report, which revealed that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) made payments to students who, according to Home Affairs records, were no longer alive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>NSFAS has attributed the errors to a lapsed contract with Home Affairs, which prevented proper verification of student records.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dube-Ncube described the situation as \u201cunjustifiable,\u201d saying there must be accountability and consequences. She highlighted the need for arrests, recovery of funds, and measures to stop such malpractice, warning that negligence of this scale cannot continue unchecked.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22991,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,44],"class_list":["post-30778","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"SA has called for the arrest of those responsible for the ghost payments of student funding","published_date":"2026-04-04 10:29:00","news_description":"SA has called for the arrest of those responsible for the ghost payments of student funding","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30779,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30778\/revisions\/30779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}