The organisation used state departments like Sars, the Department of Home Affairs, the South African State Security Agency and credit bureaus to verify the information of the beneficiaries and after re-evaluation, funding was reinstated for 14,703 students while 31,224 remained defunded.

The stringent verification process started this year after NSFAS found that it lost R5bn by funding 40,000 undeserving applicants between 2018 and 2021 and those funds have not been recovered.

"For example, students would provide correct parental relationships in their first application attempt, and when they get rejected due to the financial status of those parents when they reapply, they submit different parental relationships so when we did the re-evaluation our system picks up the original information previously submitted," Khoza said.

While the defunding of students has seen several protests lately from students who believe they were unfairly defunded, NSFAS CEO Andile Nongogo has defended the financial aid scheme, alluding that it was was necessary for the scheme to make sure it continuously reviews its policies and where it find gaps.

We have been paying college students since November last year, and we had actually intended to use the program in universities by the beginning of the year, we also had informed stakeholders and vice-chancellors that we would give them three months to come to terms with the system, and indeed, we did so," Nongongo added.