A poor South African student went on a 73-day spending spree after she received a financial aid check worth over $1 million. She spent money on clothes, parties, concerts, and gifts for friends.
Accounting student Sibongile Mani, 27, didn’t inform school officials about the puzzlingly enormous sum. Her usual financial aid check is $108 a month. The financial aid office made a mistake and added four zeros to that amount, the New York Post reported.
Mani, along with 18,000 other students, receives the aid to be able to attend Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, in South Africa. The money is supposed to only go towards food and books. Mani managed to spend a total of $65,000, raising eyebrows from those around her.
“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,” said an unnamed schoolmate via The Sun.
Mani went out and got an expensive new hairstyle, rather than the modest one she used to have. Her wardrobe and extracurricular activities suddenly became extravagant and she purchased a new iPhone 7.
“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!” said the schoolmate.
But then a receipt from a convenience store that revealed the amount of money in her bank account leaked online. That’s when she was outed by Samkelo Mqhayi, deputy branch secretary of the local student congress.
Mqhayi reported her to National Students’ Financial Aids Scheme (NSFAS).
“When the receipt was leaked showing a balance of R13.6-million ($1,050,000) in her account I called NSFAS and they checked their records and confirmed that the initial amount was R14-million ($1,080,000),” said Mqhayi.
Mani was spending $860 a day, a huge amount in South Africa. She spent a total of $65,000 in 2 1/2 months. A school official said she will have to repay the money. In Mani’s Twitter bio she describes herself as an “NSFAS baller.”
The company that gives out the checks said Mani will face prosecution.
“Legal action will be taken against the student. A forensic investigator had been appointed,” said Intellimali chief executive Michael Ansell.
Mani has since gone into hiding, promising via social media posts that she isn’t planning to hurt herself, and that there is another side to the story.
From NTD.tv
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