Cost of Publishing HELB Loan Defaulters: Why HELB’s Statement is Only a Threat

The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) revealed on 18^th November 2019 that it would be names and pictures of its beneficiaries who have defaulted in paying up the academic loans from 1975 to date but has the authority taken into consideration the cost of the exercise.

“Some beneficiaries who are in default have not responded to previous communication …therefore sustained default, hinders funding of other deserving Kenyan youth,” HELB said in a statement.

Names of defaulters accompanied by their faces will be published after which legal action will be taken in 30 days after publishing from the date of the notice and legal action may hence be taken against each defaulter.

“Beneficiaries who are not servicing their loans are therefore advised as to get in touch with HELB for particulars of their loan accounts,” HELB noted saying that any other inquiry on loan status could be confirmed via the loanee portal on their website.

READ ALSO: Photos, Names Of HELB Defaulters To Be Published On Newspapers 

Below is a breakdown of how much it would cost to publish the names of the 85,000 names HELB defaulters.

Down to the math in the case the photos HELB plans to publish are passport-sized:

A Newspaper page is A3 in Size.

A3 = 30×42 sq. cm

= 1260 sq. cm

Passport size photo with wording = 6×6 sq. cm

= 36 sq. cm

Number HELB defaulters on one page of a newspaper = (newspaper size area) ÷ (area covered by a passport size photo plus wording).

= 1260÷36

= 35

Number of pages required to publish 85,000 names and pictures of defaulters

85,000÷35 = 2,429

Assume a Newspaper has an average of 80 pages

Then HELB will need this number of publications:

2,429÷80 = 31

This, therefore means, HELB will need to contract whichever local daily publication it is that it chooses for at the very least, the next 30 days publishing on every page of the newspaper.

In the case of a full-page advert which would be 500,000 shillings, HELB would spend 500,000 shillings×80 = 40 million per day which would all add to at least 1.2 billion shillings in its quest to recover 50 billion shillings which would still be impossible considering that most of those defaulters are unemployed and cannot afford.

READ ALSO: HELB: Education Ministry Worried as College Students Avoid Loans