Limkokwing University of Creative Technology Student Representative Council (SRC) has threatened to lodge an urgent application at the High Court should the Ministry of Education and Skills Development fail to credit their allowances for the June-July 2009 vacation.

The Gazette is informed that Limkokwing SRC has been served with letters stating that the students will not be paid allowance for the June-July 2009 vacation under circumstances that the payment of allowances “is not consistent with the decision taken by government not to pay students allowances during vacation”.

It is understood that talks between the Attorney General’s Chambers and the Limkokwing SRC legal advisors have been fruitless as allowances have not been credited to date despite advice from SRC legal advisors who have warned the ministry in a letter of the impending suit at the High Court.

In a letter written to SRC legal advisors from the AG Chambers, the ministry reversed its decision in a period of six days saying it will pay back the students allowances as it realised that “it had acted harshly and unjustly and that it ought to have consulted with the students first in line with the rules of natural justice”.

In an interview with the Gazette, Limkokwing SRC president Aldo Motsemme said despite the letters written by “our legal advisors, we do not believe that they will pay us within the stipulated period within which our lawyers instructed them, the two days have already elapsed,” he exclaimed.

Motsemme said that they would go ahead with their urgent application as the ministry is fond of playing hide-and-seek with them.

But Ministry of Education Skills and Development spokesperson Nomsa Zuze said that the cutting of allowances would not be affective until August; so she could not comment any further.

Early this year the ministry announced cutting of government sponsored students allowances of local students from P1, 920 to P1, 420, those in Malaysia have already been chopped from RM2, 595 (P5, 307.75) to RM2, 100 (P4, 295.29) a month. However, government sponsored students from various tertiary institutions continue to cry foul over this decision.

In another related issue, the University of Botswana (UB) Student Representative Council (SRC) thinks this is an unwelcome development by the ministry, “The minister encourages the UB accommodation hostels to be fully utilised, then for them to not turn into white elephants, but the issue still remains that it can only accommodate 4500 students; what about the remaining 10, 500 students? How are they expected to live off campus with a mere P1, 420? This is the question the ministry has to answer, but till now, it has failed to do so.”