Social media is divided in opinion following the sentence handed to Walter Sisulu University post-graduate Sibongile Mani for her transgressions in the epic 2017 NSFAS blunder.
Sibongile Mani sentenced to five years imprisonment
On Wednesday, Magistrate Twanette Olivier delivered her judgment at the East London Regional Court, effectively sending the 31-year-old student to prison for a maximum of five years.
Mani’s defence attorneys made a valiant effort to sway the judge towards a suspended sentence, a ruling that, in the eyes of Olivier, would have been clouded by misplaced pity on someone who consciously chose to spend public monies earmarked for destitute students.
“The court has a duty to impose a fearlessly appropriate and fair sentence even if such a sentence would not satisfy public opinion,” Olivier noted in her judgment.
Mani, in 2017, was the subject of furore, mostly targeted towards the national higher education financier. The student, aged 26 at the time, qualified for R1 400 in funding but in what turned out to be an epic blunder, a total of R14 million was transferred to her bank account.
It would have been hard to miss this eight-digit discrepancy and, based on South African laws and NSFAS policies, the ‘right’ thing to do would have been to notify the state-owned funder and return excess amount which, in this case, was R13 998 600.
However, in what turned out to be her undoing, Mani went on a wild shopping spree, clocking more than R20 000 in a matter of hours after the multi millions had reflected on her account.
Before her account was finally frozen, the WSU student had racked up more than R800 000 in frivolous expenses.
NSFAS was never able to recoup the lost money and for her complicity in the blunder, Mani will have to spend five years in jail. However, according to Correctional Services policies, inmates who display good behaviour may be eligible for parole after spending at least 50% of their prison term.
Effectively, if Mani plays it by the book, she could be released in the next two years or so. That’s if, of course, her case is not overturned in appeal courts.
Her lawyers have yet to indicate their intentions to challenge the ruling.