LEARNING CURVEBALL: EFF to march on higher education department as pressure mounts on Minister Manamela

{JSON.stringify(article.attachments[0], null, 2)} --> The EFF is demanding Higher Education Minister Buti Manamela’s resignation over what it calls a ‘mess-up’ at NSFAS, and will march on the department’s Pretoria offices on 18 September.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) will march to the Higher Education and Training ministry in Pretoria on Friday, 18 September, demanding the resignation of Minister Buti Manamela. EFF MP Sihle Lonzi cited Manamela’s “mess-up” at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) as the catalyst for the demonstration.

The march comes after the Gauteng High Court ordered Manamela to reinstate seven NSFAS board members dismissed during his appointment of suspended administrator Hlengani Mathebula. The court flagged procedural flaws in Manamela’s actions and labelled Mathebula’s conduct as “bizarre”.

Before Mathebula’s appointment, the board had recommended Waseem Carrim as CEO, a process the board says stalled amid “political interference” from Manamela. After losing the high court case, Manamela met with the board and appointed advocate Richardt Tlou Ramashia as interim chairperson, with Carrim reinstated as acting CEO, “to provide NSFAS with stable governance”, said Manamela on 11 September.

“A lot of the issues that students are experiencing – defunding, student accommodation, the middleman schemes, the evictions – he likes to say he’s not the minister of NSFAS, but the reality is that generally a lot of the problems in higher education are centred around NSFAS. So I think what became a massive trigger was how he handled the entire situation at NSFAS, so he must go,” he said.

Daily Maverick has reported that public funds were splashed out on hotel stays, with double bookings that suggest fruitless expenditure. In addition, four advisers to Mathebula were paid close to R500,000 without the approval of the National Treasury. Mathebula and Manamela were grilled after claiming they did not need Treasury’s approval following advice from Manamela’s department.

The EFF has an ongoing legal fight with Manamela that is now widening, according to Lonzi. It stems from a bruising session in Parliament on 26 November 2025, when MPs challenged the legality and transparency of Manamela’s reappointment of Seta (South African Sector Education and Training Authorities) CEOs, arguing he pushed through the five-year terms under pressure and without due process.

“Our lawyers advised us that we must do a joinder, because initially the respondents were only the CEO and the minister, so now the boards, the interim board chairpersons who would have been chairing those meetings, also form part of the court case,” said Lonzi.

“Something that could have started in Parliament, we’re now taking it to the streets, just to show [Manamela] that everywhere he goes, he’s not going to find peace until all these issues are resolved.”

The Department of Higher Education and Training spokesperson, Matshepo Seedat, said the right to protest, petition government and criticise political office-bearers is part of democracy.

“The department will receive the memorandum and consider the issues raised in it,” she said.