The students said they were told by the education attachˇ that their allowances have been frozen because some of them registered and then came back home to look for jobs. A student, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation, said they were told that a register will be kept to monitor their class attendance but they rejected this because they are adults. "The education attachˇ told us to submit our progress reports which we did to show that we have been genuinely attending school, but still, he failed to give us our allowances."
The student said their situation is made worse by landlords who are threatening to evict them. "Some of them have even locked our belongings in the houses and have told us to pay before they give us the keys. I was forced to ask for accommodation from a friend when I went back after my two months teaching practice here," she lamented. She stated that many of the students are now stranded in Mafikeng with no transport money to attend classes. This has forced them to ask the university management to suspend their classes till Monday so that they can sort out their problems with the department. "I am even regretting that I went for this course. It's only that I did not have a job and thought of pursuing it so that I at least branch out to teaching," said the student who holds a degree in Agriculture from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
When contacted, officials at the department explained that they are aware of the situation, but they are still investigating the students who have abandoned their studies to work, while pocketing their monthly allowances.
"The department has been defrauded by the students before and we do not want to repeat the same mistake. We found out that most of them went to register while looking for jobs on the side. When they got employed, they did not tell us but rather opted to pocket the allowances," said Thapelo Ndlovu, the spokesman for the Ministry of Education. He added that students are clever and give all sorts of excuses and if ministry officials are not careful, they will get away easily. "There are situations where we have to go deeper in our investigations. If they are innocent, they will be given all their back pays," Ndlovu explained.
He said there will be no delays as the matter is urgent though they will have to satisfy themselves that nobody is cheating because they are dealing with public funds. "They submitted a petition with a list of names of those who were here. Presenting it will make it easier for us. But we do not know how long it would take for the investigations to be completed. I cannot say it will be done next week or next month," Ndlovu said.
He encouraged the students to continue going for classes and dealing with the angry landlords will be some of the unfortunate things that they will have to contend with while waiting for the investigations to be completed. The ministry has said that Batswana students in South African institutions have defrauded the government of about P5 million.
