TEMPERS FLARE AT SANU, COPS CALLED

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. 

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