Rubber bullets fly as Wits SRC vows to continue student debt protests

Wits SRC took to the streets of Braamfontein on Tuesday morning amid rising anger over the exclusion of indebted students.

The protest followed a meeting between the university management and the SRC in which the two parties failed to reach an agreement.

The institution, however, says it has already committed R10 million to assist students who need financial aid.

But Dabula says the money will not be enough and the institution must allow students to register and settle their debts while studying.

She says the institution will only allow students with debts of less than R10 000 to register.

“We want them to register students who are owing R150 000, and they only want to allow students who owe R10 000 to register. We are fighting on the basis that in previous years, what they would normally do, is if you are having debt as a student, they would allow you if you owed R120 000 going down to register without you having to pay those fees.

“You sign an AOD (acknowledgement of debt) and you’re allowed to register but what happened differently in the year 2021, they said that only students that are owning R10 000 and downwards must be allowed to register,” she says.

Dabula says Covid-19 has affected most of the students financially and others were defunded by Nsfas and bursaries.

She also accused the police, who fired rubber bullets at the students, of being trigger-happy.

“They didn’t even speak to us on why we are protesting, they just started shooting at us and we were harmless. We are terrified, we don’t know what to do. An EFFSC member was captured even though we tried speaking to them to say it is unfair.

“We are frustrated to see that we are fighting financial exclusion and now we have to fight the police who should be protecting us. Whenever we call them on issues of GBV they are never there.”

The university began with online classes on Monday after registering almost 37 000 students.

Listen to  Sthembiso Dabula below :

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