Looming Arrest for 74,000 HELB Loan Defaulters in Employment

The Education Cabinet Secretary (CS) Amina Mohamed has not minced her words in calling out the 74,000 High Education Loans Board (Helb) Loan defaulters for their failure to service the education loans.

In the CS’s address on Wednesday, she stated that Helb was not going to spare any efforts in recovering the money loaned to needy higher learning students amounting to 7.2 billion shillings.

CS Amina appealed employers to help in tracking defaulters whom she said would face arrest by the police.

“We are also going to partner with our law enforcement agencies to track down those holding jobs and yet are reluctant to stand up to be counted as responsible and patriotic citizens who honor their debts,” the CS said.

The Government is expected to cough out over 1 billion shillings for the admission of all the qualified students to universities and technical training colleges in 2019.

To cater for the students who will join technical vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, the Government is expected to spend 8.5 billion shillings for the 121,000 students.

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CS Amina spoke in a launch of HELB’s five-year strategic plan where she also mentioned that mobile money transactions such as M-Pesa and Airtel Money would also be used.

“We hope by doing we will increase the resources that are available to HELB to support others, we want them to become reliable and responsible citizens by repaying their debt,” she said.

The CS had previously announced that the Ministry was looking for more resources to enhance TVET institutions and recovering money loaned to Helb students seems to be one of the strategies.

“Due to the rapid expansion of higher education, enrollment is now in excess of 795,000 students, providing our country with amazing opportunities” the CS informed.

If you are an employed beneficiary of the Helb loan, it is most probably time that you consider paying up before police officers come knocking.

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