IntelliMali takes full responsibility for R14million error

The company responsible for paying the monthly allowances, IntelliMali, says it takes full responsibility for the error. 

However, it intends to take legal action against the student who has, according to the company, "misappropriated" nearly R1million.

In a statement, the CEO Michael Ansell says the student received an over allocation of her monthly food allowance in June. 

While all other 3500 students received their usual monthly allocation of R1400, this student received in error an allocation of R14.1 million, he says. 

Ansell says by the time the error had been discovered in August, the student had misappropriated over R800 000.

"The student, whose name is known to IntelliMali, did not report the oversight but chose rather to access the funds. When the error was discovered in early August 2017, she had misappropriated R818 000," Ansell explains.

He says the error is specific to only this student.

"Regardless of the outcome of the investigation referred to later, IntelliMali takes full administrative and financial responsibility for the incident. Neither the funder, National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) nor the university (WSU) have erred in any way and they are not responsible for this. In addition, no student's financial aid support will be affected in any way," Ansell explains.

The company says it has already put in place the necessary controls to prevent a repeat of this incident.

"Over the past 10 years, IntelliMali has loaded and managed in excess of R5 billion in allowances. Nothing like this has ever occurred before at IntelliMali."

IntelliMali insists all uploads for the Walter Sisulu University had been checked and verified and all the data was correct at the time of processing.

The student's account was immediately deactivated after the error was noted. 

"IntelliMali has appointed a forensic auditor to investigate this incident which can only be described as unprecedented in our 10-year history.