The Civil Organization, Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), wants private student accommodation to be managed by tertiary academic institutions like before.

This comes after a string of concerns relating to the delays in NSFAS funding, affecting students and financially crippling service providers.

The Private Student Housing Association is one of the bodies owed R44 million by NSFAS and is now threatening to evict thousands of students if the outstanding money is not paid within two weeks.

Meanwhile, NSFAS and the Higher Education Department say they are working around the clock to address these issues and to avail monies to all eligible students.

Students are looking for a roof over their heads as they gear up for the 2025 academic year.

But challenges with NSFAS is frustrating the process. To prevent this, OUTA says Tertiary Institutions must take over.

“Before 2023, the accommodation was held by the academic institutions themselves and that time there were less problems. There was no middleman involved, the students were directly at the university communicating directly with the university authorities for accommodations to place these students in private accommodation that’s accredited by the institutions. And we feel that NSFAS should go back to that specific model…so that there’s no middleman,” says OUTA’s Rudie Heyneke.

The Private Student Housing Association concurs, saying many of the service providers are set up for failure by the delays in NSFAS funding and red tape.

“It’s tedious and long. We now have members that have submitted their beds last year November and those beds have not been accredited as we speak. Therefore, we are asking NSFAS to abandon the portal and fix the portal for 2025 and allow universities to manage student accommodation because with universities we are guaranteed that even when NSFAS pay universities late, they are able to advance money to us on a monthly basis,” says CEO of Private Student Housing Association Kagisho Mamabolo.

Another concern is the high demand to access student accommodation following the high matric pass rate which could make matters worse.

“Where we have businesspeople saying we have not been paid. How do we deal with those matters. So, I think it’s important to say overall we have declared the readiness of the system but we’ve also acknowledged that there are challenges that are still there. They are specific, they are in the area of student accommodation but most importantly there is a demand of student access, it requires not for us to write reports about each other,” says Director General of Higher Education Dr Nkosinathi Sishi.

“In some if the claims that were submitted, there was claim that 1 500 students were not paid for.m Once we looked into the claim, we found the money was paid to the institution and the institution must pay that amount,” says NSFAS administrator Freeman Nomvalo.

It now remains to be seen whether the Private Student Housing Association and NSFAS can find each other before Tertiary Institutions start, as many fear that a deadlock could lead to serious disruptions and mayhem for the 2025 academic year.

Video: Accommodation, funding challenges persist as SA universities prepare to open