SBONGILE MANI HAS BEEN SENTENCED TO FIVE YEARS IN PRISON FOR STEALING NSFAS MONEY

Sibongile Mani, a student at Walter Sisulu University (WSU) , was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing R14 million from the National Student  Financial Aid Scheme  (NSFAS), which was accidentally paid to her account in 2017. Mani was found guilty of stealing R818 000 from the East London Regional Court Twanette Oliver. She was only entitled to an R1400 food allowance and was charged with failure to declare after R14 million was incorrectly paid to her account. She went on a shopping binge instead. She will be eligible for parole after serving one-third of her five year sentence and could serve the remaining three years under supervision. Oliver said the court thought a suspended term was completely improper when he handed down the punishment on Wednesday.

"The only acceptable sentence is direct incarceration, and you so sentenced to a term of five years in prison." The fact that Mani was a first-time offender, according to Olivier was taken into account by the court. "You, and alone you, took that decision on 1 June 2017, and you did it repeatedly, for 73 straight days, multiple times everyday," Olivier told Mani, in response to the defence's argument that the court should not terminate Mani's bright future. If IntelliMali, a Cape Town based corporation responsible for distributing NSFAS payments to students, had not given back the money she used to WSU, 585 students who relied on NSFAS money to study at WSU would have been prejudiced, according to Olivier.

She further mentioned that the funds were not spent on the necessities of life it was motivated by greed than necessity. Mani's age and health were taken into account by the court, and Magistrate Olivier stated that Mani was an adult at the time of the offence. Mani's claim that she had no intention of robbing NSFAS of its funds and had no understanding of the terms of the loans agreement she had with NSFAS was denied by the court. After IntelliMali opened a theft investigation, Mani was arrested by the Hawks' Serious Commercial Crime Unit in My 2018. Mani was accused of failing to report the error and went on a buying spree that lasted 73 days and her over R800,000. She spent an hour and a half between 1 June, when the money arrived in her account, and 13 August when NSFAS discovered the problem, according to the State.

She allegedly spent the money at 48 merchants in the Eastern, Western, and Gauteng province. During the trial, Olivier told Mani that her receipts showed she certainly planned per day in as many places as can on any given date. She said that Mani's ability to spend that much money per day around the country was impressive.