Times Of Swaziland: TEMPERS FLARE AT SANU, COPS CALLED

TEMPERS FLARE AT SANU, COPS CALLED
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BY Zwelakhe Moahloli on 02/11/2019 08:31:00


MANZINI - Police had to be called as tempers flared at the Southern African
Nazarene University (SANU) when students protested over unpaid monthly
allowances.
The SANU students from the faculty of education were up in arms over
government’s non-payment of their monthly allowances.
As a result students embarked on a protest staged at the university premises
yesterday where they demanded swift payment of the allowances.
Student Representative Council (SRC) President Tholumuzi Simelane said the
students were concerned about government’s inability to uphold its agreement
to disburse their monthly allowances within a period of 30 days.
This is stipulated by a clause contained in the pre-service tertiary education
study loan agreement form the students signed a couple of months ago.
The clause states that the students’ monthly allowances would be disbursed on
a 30-day cycle or any period not less than 30 days over a 10-month academic
period.
However, by the time of compiling this report yesterday the students had not yet
been paid the allowance, a scenario that prompted the protest action.
Simelane said they received their allowances in the region of E1 600 on
September 25, 2019 and were informed by the Ministry of Labour and Social
Security that their allowances for the month of September and October would be
paid on October, 30, 2019.
Deposit
“Today (yesterday) is November 1, 2019 and the allowances have not been
deposited into our personal accounts,” he said.
He mentioned that as a result of the inconvenience, they had accumulated debts
with a hope that they would repay their creditors soon after receiving their
allowances.
Simelane further highlighted that a majority of the students were starving as
they were no longer had money to buy food.
The student representative also pointed out that all the students at the
institution stayed off-campus and as such, they were obliged to pay rent every
month, an obligation they could hardly meet given that they have not received
their allowances.
Beat
“This morning, I had to beat about the bush when my landlord demanded money
for rent, reason being that I am bankrupt,” he said.
He said apart from their predicament of failing to pay their rentals, they
normally faced a challenge in purchasing electricity units in their rented
flats.
Simelane also highlighted that as per the normal procedure their book fees were
paid directly to them together with their personal allowances.
He said the mere fact that their personal allowances had not been paid was
indicative of the fact that their book fees had not been paid either, a
predicament which he said caused a severe inconvenience for them as students.
“Ever since classes resumed in August this year, we have been attending
without the necessary books and the question that begs to be answered is; would
government issue out the book fee allowances after we have failed our
modules?” he asked.
Disbursed
“In a bid to ascertain the precise date on which the allowances would be
disbursed by government we liaised with our counterparts (SRC) members from
Limkokwing University of Creative Technology and William Pitcher College who
said they were also in the dark,” he said.
He said as the students’ body (SRC), they contacted the Principal Secretary in
the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Thulani Mkhaliphi, on Wednesday and
he responded by saying he was not cognizant of the specific time within which
the allowances would be released.
Mkhaliphi could not be reached for comment at the time of compiling this report
because he was reportedly out of the country on a government trip in Geneva.