A student
who received a staggering £850,000 (N392million) instead of her usual £85
monthly university food grant is in hot water after going on a massive 73 day
spending
spree with her pals.
According to
Sun UK, the Accountancy student identified as Sibongile Mani, 27, who was on
benefits to allow her to study was said to have undergone a Cinderella like
transformation overnight after the cash blunder.
It was
gathered that student leader Sibongile usually receives £85 each month in her
bank account in food and book allowances at Walter Sisulu University in
Mthatha, Eastern Cape, South Africa before the sad error saw her account blow
to a staggering N392 million.
But people
started raising eyebrows when her neat corn-row hairstyle was replaced with
£180-a-time Peruvian weaves and she began wearing designer outfits and bought a
brand new i-phone 7.
She began
flashing the cash kitting out her closest friends with new outfits and drinking
£50-a-time bottles of whisky and jetting herself and her pals round the country
to wild parties.
Suspicions
grew when a till receipt from a local SPAR shop was leaked showing that she had
£810,000 in her account and her wild spending became more lavish and talked
about.
She was
finally outed by Samkelo Mqhayi, deputy branch secretary of the South African
Students Congress (SASCO), who reported her to the National Students’ Financial
Aids Scheme.
He told
Herald Live: “She threw surprise birthday parties for her friends and showered
them with expensive gifts and flew them to events where she bought the best
seats.
“When the
SPAR receipt was leaked showing a balance of R13.6-million (£810,000) in her
account I called NSFAS and they checked their records and confirmed that the
initial amount was R14-million (£850,000)".
By the time
they reigned her in after her two-and-a-half-month spending spree they
discovered she had been blowing £666 a day which is a staggering amount in
South Africa.
The total
missing from the account is £50,000. A fellow student said: “She went from a
hard up, humdrum run-of-the-mill student to one who was leading a lavish
lifestyle and seemed to have no bottom to her purse and lived the high life.
“She became
very glamorous in beautiful dresses with all the accessories and we thought she
must have won the Lottery. She must have thought she had won it too when she
got that cash!”.
In a
Facebook post Miss Mani claimed she had reported the error to the authorities.
She said:
”Today my personal life has become a social media scandal. I have been named
and shamed in public. Today, I am a bad person, a person who stole the money of
students.
“With that
being said, and being named a thief, but as we all know in every story there is
truth and there are lies with the very same story”.
She said she
was not denying anything but would tell her side later but she has fled the
campus and gone into hiding and shut down her Facebook page.
Miss Mani
told the Daily Daily Dispatch: ”It is very clear that I didn’t make the error”.
Walter
Sisulu University spokeswoman Yonela Tukwayo said the £850,000 payment did not
affect other students saying: "All students who were due to receive NSFAS
payments got them.
“She will
have to repay the money”.
Intellimali
chief executive Michael Ansell said: ” Legal action will be taken against the
student. A forensic investigator had been appointed”.
The
university has 30,500 students of whom 18,000 are funded by the NSFAS who are
meant to spend their monthly grants on food and books.
Legal
experts have said Miss Mani could face a charge of theft.
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