20 Mar 2018

Parliament has been informed the P99 000 per month current contract of disbursing allowances to government sponsored students by First National Bank (FNBB) came into effect on January 1, 2016.

Assistant Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology explained that the contract of disbursing allowances to government sponsored students was started in 2006, whereby all banks were invited for expression of interest for the student services and only First National Bank (FNBB) responded and it was awarded the contract.

Answering a question in Parliament on Monday, Mr Fidelis Molao said since then, the contract had been renewed for FNBB until an invitation to tender was re-done in 2015. “Benefits transferred to students from this current contract include registering and opening students’ accounts under the appropriate account category and issuing students with ATM cards, accessibility to funds through the banks’ 22 branches, three students’ centres, 136 ATMs with 85 in Gaborone, and 23 slim line ATMs for accessibility in remote areas.

There are no service charges levied to students’ accounts and maintaining both the ministry (DTEF) and students’ bank accounts records and transactions entries in an accountable and retrievable manner,” he said.

He further said ‘the length of the contract is for 36 months and is expected to terminate on December 31, 2018 and can be considered for renewal.’

Mr Molao said FNBB was the least costly and also met the required tender specifications hence they won the tender.

“A team of employees has been set up to carry out the monthly reconciliation of the student allowances disbursement account. The team ensures that they reconcile the funds requested and paid into the students’ account with the funds actually paid to the individual students,” said Mr Molao. He said that aimed to ensure that unclaimed funds for whatever reason were paid back into the government expenditure account rather than being left in the bank account.

Mr Molao noted that the reconciliation ensured that the bank account has a zero balance after each month payments and this would mean that funds requested had been used for what they were requested for. “The exercise is up to date for the financial year 2017/18 and the team continues to reconcile the back log,” he continued.

He said the accounts’ reconciliation was done on monthly basis since this financial year 2017/2018. Mr Molao said it was not possible to indicate if any discrepancies occurred in the account in the last five (5) years and this was because the reconciliation process for the account started in April this financial year.

“The reconciliation team started with the current financial year 2017/18 and has since completed 2016/17 too. The adjustments expenditure were done and accounted for in the government books of accounts. The team is working on the financial years going backwards,” he concluded.

Specially elected MP, Ms Bogolo Kenewendo wanted to know how long FNBB had had a contract of disbursing allowances to government sponsored students, the cost associated with the contract, the benefits transferred to students from this contract, the length of the contract and when it was due for renewal.

Ms Kenewendo further asked the minister what was FNBB’s value proposition that led to them winning the tender, what system had been put in place to reconcile the remittances from the FNBB students’ allowances disbursements account, what was the frequency of the accounts’ reconciliation. ENDS