Court dismisses Khosa’s NSFAS challenge

FORMER board chairperson of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (Nsfas), Ernest Khosa, has lost a court case in which he wanted the court to order the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) to remove the report implicating him in corruption from its website.

- MANYANE MANYANE

The Johannesburg High Court dismissed the application brought by Khosa.

It was Khosa’s second attempt to get the report removed. He wrote to Outa, through his attorneys, demanding the removal of the report shortly after it was published last year.

The report, which was published in January 2024, alleges that Khosa and former Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande defrauded Nsfas through kickbacks from service providers.

Khosa said he would be able to respond to the dismissal by Wednesday.

In his application before the court, he wanted the court to order Outa to take the report down from its website and an order that he must be allowed to respond to the allegations.

He also demanded that the report only be republished once this was completed to his satisfaction, adding that the republished report must contain an accurate record of his responses to each allegation.

Khosa argued that Outa was no mere private party and that the default common law position did not apply to it.

He stated his argument as follows:

◆ Although lacking any legal authority or mandate to do so, Outa purports to conduct investigations into allegations of malfeasance and corruption in the public sphere.