Genocide survivor students in higher institutions of learning, sponsored by the Fund for Genocide Survivors (FARG), have appealed to the government to enable them receive their bursaries on time. In an interview with The New Times yesterday Aime Kalisa, the Coordinator of Student Genocide Survivors’ Association (AERG) at School of Finance and Banking (SFB) said the delays were affecting their studies.“Currently, SFB has over 900 students who are sponsored by FARG, but only about 10 percent get accommodation at the university because of failure to get our bursaries earlier,” Kalisa said.According to him, each student is supposed to receive a monthly bursary of Rwf 25,000, but they presently wait for over five months before receiving the funds.He said that due to this challenge, it becomes expensive for most students residing outside the institution, noting that several students were forced to drop out last year for failure to get money.Another survivor student at the Adventist University of Central Africa (AUCA), Theogene Hakizimana, said that due to delays in getting their bursaries, some students without relatives walk long distances to the institution which affects their academic performance as they fail to arrive for classes on time. “FARG and the government has really done a tremendous job in improving the living standards of genocide survivor students, but they should revise the way they disburse our bursaries because this is one of the factors affecting our studies and lives,” Hakizimana urged.The coordinator of AERG at AUCA, Idephonse Ugiringabire, noted that most delays in sending their bursaries result from failure by FARG officials to verify whether students report to their respective universities on time before disbursement of funds.In an interview with The New Times yesterday, the Director of Programmes at FARG, Vedaste Rutayisire, said students obtain the funds in two phases annually, with the first tranche of Rwf125, 000 disbursed after every five months.He blamed the students for the delays, saying they had requested that FARG disburses their bursaries in two instalments instead of the monthly basis.The students, he said, had argued that this would enable them to get a reasonable amount of money to meet their personal needs.“FARG cannot fail to disburse bursaries for genocide survivor students on a monthly basis because it’s their right to get it. I am surprised to learn that they are now complaining that we don’t send their money on time” Rutayisire observed.According to him, 5,625 students benefited from bursaries last year with the number rising to 8,100 this year.
