It must be quite a blast powering your way through R818 000 in 73 days.

Just ask Sibongile Mani, the Walter Sisulu student who lived like a queen until she was ratted out by jealous fellow students.

You can find all the details of her excess HERE, with a look at what she spent that cash on.

All good things must come to an end, and now she is facing the prospect of paying that entire sum back. As Times LIVE make clear, that’s not going to be a walk in the park.

They’re just playing the guessing game, because no one knows the exact details, but here’s one scenario:

Let’s say an aspirant property portfolio owner purchased an apartment worth R818‚000. Doing a rough calculation‚ including an interest rate at 10.25% and the loan spanning 20 years‚ the purchaser would have to earn around R26‚700 a month to meet the repayment obligation of just over R8‚000 – per month.

With interest‚ the total repayment would rise to around R1.1-million.

Condensing the repayment to six years – as would be the case with a luxury vehicle purchase – would see the figure rocket to approximately R16‚200 a month.

Eish, sounds like someone could use a blesser right about now.

Her friends, upon whom she lavished gifts, are sticking by her side. Here they are quite literally forming a protective screen around her:

According to the Sunday Times, she is all kinds of shook:

After promising to speak to the Sunday Times, the baby-faced student activist claimed – in a soft, quivering voice – that she was not well. She then broke down in tears before fleeing.

In an SMS she later informed the Sunday Times that she was seeing a psychologist to help her through the trauma.

Perhaps this is the most damning indictment of all – her grandmother, who raised her, didn’t see a cent. Via News24:

“She should have built me a house instead of buying hair and such nonsense. At least we would have been able to say this is what she did with the money. I worked many years to raise her and now she wastes money on such things,” [Nombulelo Mani] said…

Mani’s house is old and dilapidated. Half of the structure is made of brick and the other half, of corrugated iron. Large bricks have been placed on the roof to prevent it being blown away by wind.

The house has no electricity and Mani has to walk about a kilometre to fetch water from a communal tap.

So Peruvian weaves and iPhone 7s are more important than granny’s living situation. Nice.

University students aren’t known for having their wits about them, but Mani is 27 and studying accounting. Make of that what you will.

[sources:timeslive&sundaytimes&news24]