Lump of coal for Christmas, Blade Nzimande!
Press release provided by Hayley Reichert
According to Hayley Reichert, a South African activist in London, the Minister for Higher Education, Mr Blade Nzimande deserves nothing but a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking after he has failed to intervene and rectify the matter regarding payment of tuition, accommodation, visa extensions and stipends for Mpumalanga students in Russia.
The 218 students face having to raise funds themselves or they will be forced to return home without completing their degrees due to the Mpumalanga Department of Higher Education failing to manage payments, a job that were previously awarded on a contract to RACUS which came to an end in March this year.
The department claims it advertised for a new tender in the last quarter of 2021 but received zero applications. They floundered for months after the RACUS contract ended, causing students to turn to the media to create awareness and drive pressure to resolve the matter. This resulted in the MP DHET sending two officials to Russia 'to pay homage to our bursary holders' (according to an official letter from MP DHET), and arrange payment in local currency through the South African Embassy due to forex issues, given the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
With only 47 student's tuition paid, the majority of students still have not had their tuition, accommodation or monthly stipends for basic food & transport paid, with many stipend payments backlogged since October. These students, from underprivileged backgrounds, are having to share food where possible, often living on instant noodles whilst some parents have had to take out loans to try help their children survive. They are now being forced to return home empty handed after years of studying, some mere months away from graduation.
As RACUS no longer has a valid contract, MP DHET requested the various Russian universities submit new invoices addressed to them directly as part of due procedures and protocols before payment can be made. All but 3 universities have been unwilling to do so as they originally agreed to work with RACUS as the agent for the current students. Thus a stalemate situation has occurred.
Instead of awarding an emergency, short-term contract to RACUS to allow the matter to be resolved, allegedly due to a concern of previous irregular payments by the company Green Tutu (trading as RACUS), MP DHE have failed to rectify the situation and have taken the decision to force these students to return home without degrees, throwing previous taxpayers money down the drain as the students' education and associated costs are funded by Mpumalanga government.
Reichert, surprised that the matter had still not been fully resolved, reached out to Minister Nzimande's office earlier this week and received a reply from one of his PA's via WhatsApp on Wednesday 21 December 2022 as follows:
So at it stands HOD Mpumalanga indicated that all the students whose universities refused to issue invoices for payment will have to return back home.
We have initiated a process with DDG Socikwa to engage with our local medical schools to consider the absorption of the students.
We have so far engaged with SMU and UKZN. We intend to engage the rest early next year as they were not available before closure.
So far the universities we engaged with have asked for the curriculums of the students which I aksed HOD:Education/ Mpumalanga to assist with, which she said she will.
I must say that the local universities were very hostile and not receptive but they will consider the students once their curriculums are assessed to determine which level they can be absorbed.
I suspect that all students will not be absorbed locally as some of the Russian universities are not acknowledged or have not been reviewed by the Health Sciences council of SA (HPCSA).
We also decided to engage with the Serbian ambassador who was receptive to allow the students to apply at Serbian universities for absorption. However, they can only be absorbed in 2024 as uptake for 2023 has already been closed.
Another solution we may need to explore is Mozambique and Namibia as those universities are on the HPCSA list.
I am exploring these other 'foreign' options because I am worried that SA medical schools will not be able to assist all 218 students that require assistance.
For the past 4 months we have been engaging with the Medical Deans (through a task team) to assist the 54 displaced Ukrainian students and they were not really helpful. I am not aware on one displaced student who has been absorbed locally.
We then explored Hungarian universities who only agreed to consider them from 1st year ( meaning they have to start afresh if they are accepted).
In conclusion we will have a clear idea of how many students can be accepted locally at SA universities. We plan to engage the remaining 8 medical schools. Two of the 8 have already responded with an outright NO. But we will still engage them.
According to Reichert, the students have tried in vain for 5 months to work with MP DHET and have also sent pleas for help to Mr Blade Nzimande which have proven fruitless. With many students facing possible deportation as early as 30 December 2022, Reichert is calling on Mr Nzimande to urgently step up, reinstate RACUS for the matter to be resolved and avoid the students' education being thrown out with the festive wrapping paper.
For more information please contact:
Hayley Reichert
WhatsApp +447402929754
Temp SA number +27 684537189
Read more: