A student who received a staggering £850,000 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. Accountancy student 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.
Student leader Sibongile who is at the Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, South Africa, gets £85 each month put into her bank account in food and book allowances.
But instead the company that administers the financial aid allowances at the university called Intellimali fouled up and sent £850,000 in cash to the hard up student.
Eyebrows were raised initially 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 he 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.
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.
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.
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.
Comments