Nelson Mandela Bay landlords, still waiting for three months of unpaid rent from NSFAS, have threatened to evict hundreds of students, saying the government scheme has failed to honour its payment agreements.
Payments were due on Thursday. However, only one month’s rent was received.
The Residence Owners’ Association (ROA) wrote to the student aid provider on Monday, stating that some landlords had suspended some services they were forced to provide, such as security and cleaning.
The affected accommodation providers are directly registered with NSFAS through a student housing platform.
Profecia IT, which manages the Eastern Cape, does the payments.
They provide about 10,000 off-campus beds in the city.
Landlord Zuko Sam, who rents to seven students, said evictions were a last resort for frustrated owners who had exhausted all options, such as limiting services at their properties.
“I am advocating for evictions because we are left with no other option but to frustrate them.
“They do not listen to us and seeing that they keep reiterating that their main stakeholder is the students, we have to remove them.
“If I do not pay for electricity, they can load it themselves. I cannot just cut the Wi-Fi because that is on a contract.
“This is not evictions just for the sake of it, I want my money,” he said.
He said he received a month’s rent for six students at his residence on Thursday.
Barbara Roberts, who provides accommodation for four students, said they felt sorry for the students but NSFAS needed to take responsibility.
“We should have received full payments and we are in the same position having to pay rates and taxes and electricity.
“We are all bleeding at the moment and we are all angry about it.
“We are sorry for the students, but this is a NSFAS fault because they have to get their act together,” she said.
ROA acting chair Duncan Monks said while the association had not taken a position to encourage evictions, some members had started looking into the process.
He said other landlords might be forced to evict because of a warning from their banks that their properties would be seized.
“Sadly, people cannot operate within this model while waiting for payments to come through,” he said.
Despite not receiving a single payment for the whole year to cover their costs, owners have had to continue services which include Wi-Fi, pest control, armed security response, electricity, water and cleaning services.
Monks said the majority of their members had received 20% of what they were owed, while some were paid as little as 10%.
He said they had written to NSFAS on Monday, as some landlords started suspending services.
“We did warn NSFAS and the solutions partner during the meeting on March 25 that landlords, sadly, do not have the financial muscle to continue with the level of services required by NSFAS without us receiving the payments that are owed,” he said.
“We were promised in that meeting that we would receive back payments for the three months and the upcoming month, which was April.
“With that commitment, we released a letter for our landlords, effectively asking for grace from our creditors.
“Now it makes it difficult to go back to them after that date because there was a resolution to try to honour breached contracts, and now we are in a situation where we cannot assure them that we can pay them,” he said.
According to Monks, the nonpayments had affected their members in NMU, Fort Hare, Eastern Cape Midlands College and Lovedale College.
All are accredited under Profecia IT.
Earlier in 2024, NSFAS started a pilot project on student accommodation, featuring a housing portal managed by Profecia IT.
Accreditation of accommodation providers was previously a function held by higher learning institutions.
Monks said that 50% of the members still registered with institutions had received payments.
Profecia IT chief executive Ebenezer Smith said payment delays were from NSFAS.
“At this stage, we do not know what the exact problem was, but it was communicated that the client has had issues which it is working tirelessly to fix.
“We handed the data of all students which were successfully onboarded by the landlords onto the portal. All that information was provided before the March deadline, which was set,” he said.
At the time of publication, NSFAS spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi had failed to respond.
On April 9, NSFAS sent out a media statement discouraging the eviction of students.
“NSFAS would like to reiterate the call to landlords to refrain from evicting students and to collaborate with the scheme in submitting their accommodation claims according to the guidelines provided,” the statement read.
“This co-operation is crucial to ensuring that students, who are often in vulnerable situations, maintain stable living conditions while pursuing their studies.”
Monks said the ROA would have another meeting on Wednesday with NSFAS acting chief executive Waseem Carrim, Profecia IT and the affected institutions.
NMU SRC president Lathitha Mbuzwana said while they understood that the ROA had been patient on the nonpayments, students should not be the casualty of a tussle between the landlords and NSFAS.
“Evictions won’t affect NSFAS directly but the students living on their properties, employees at the national student aid will continue to get their salaries.
“We are going to try to engage the minister [of higher education Nobuhle Nkabane] to the [parliament] portfolio committee to engage with the ROA, because while we understand they have been patient, students must not be centred and be victims of a fight between the two,” he said.
The Herald
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