AS the Treasury scrambles to find money promised to fund the zero increase for poor and working-class students, an economist warned on Tuesday that Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande had made promises SA cannot afford to keep. The Treasury said in a statement it was embarking on a prioritising drive, working with various departments and agencies to find the money to tackle the shortfall. The results of its efforts will be included in the medium-term budget policy statement in October. Nzimande on Monday announced there would be no fee increase for students whose parents earned less than R600,000 a year for the 2017 academic year. Wealthy students would have to foot their own bills for the increases. Dawie Roodt, an economist at financial services company Efficient Group, warned the bigger picture was the state could not honour Nzimande's promises. "We have talked ourselves into a corner. What is happening here is because politicians don’t know how to handle this,"...
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