DTEF is clean – DCEC
Innocent Selatlhwa | Tuesday March 8, 2022 06:00
When delivering her historic Budget Speech last month, Minister of Finance and Economic Development (MFED), Peggy Serame announced the immediate transfer of the Tertiary Education Financing (TEF) vote under DTEF to her ministry.
Before this, the DTEF was under the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology.
Serame said when delivering the Budget Speech that the transfer was aimed at ensuring that the vote is managed prudently for long-term sustainability.
“MFED has contracted an accounting firm to undertake a special audit on the TEF activities for the last 10 financial years. The work entails an in-depth examination of the management of the tertiary education financing, awarding of sponsorships, reasonability of tuition fee levels charged by tertiary institutions, allocation of students to tertiary institutions and examination of issues around payment of tuition fees and allowances, and will be submitted by July 2022,” she said.
Following the speech, The Monitor enquired how many cases have been registered concerning TEF over the last 10 years. DCEC Public Relations Officer, Lentswe Motshoganetsi said they pursued cases but none were fit enough for a court date.
“The DCEC received a total of 16 allegations of corruption pertaining to DTEF for the past 10 years. No cases have been to court yet as the majority of these allegations were proved to be bordering on administrative flaws and lapses than corruption,” he said.
Some of the allegations made include a DTEF officer allegedly negotiating the increase of tuition fees with institutions for kickbacks; allegations that DTEF pays tuition fees to some institutions for courses not completed by students; DTEF officers allegedly conniving with institution officials to have more students sponsored in return for valuable consideration (bribe) and institutions allegedly producing fake invoices to claim money from DTEF for courses not done by students.
“Senior official in the Ministry of Tertiary Education allegedly instructing Director of DTEF to pay an institution all outstanding invoices (tuition fees) for government-sponsored students despite disagreement between DTEF and the said institution relating to some students whose applications for sponsorship were not approved; DTEF officials allegedly conniving with institutions to defraud the government of money; Students continuing to be sponsored even though they had completed their studies; Allegations that some students got government sponsorship but do not appear in the student Loan Management System and train without a training number and a sponsorship letter or loan agreement,” Motshoganetsi said.
He added the DCEC through its corruption prevention and public education services has engaged with the said department and conducted corruption audits on tertiary education financing, quality education and cost recovery. He said the DCEC further sensitised the ministry on the said administrative lapses.