95,000 Students Won’t Get HELB Loans, 85,000 Put On CRB Notice

More than 85,000 Kenyans have not paid their loan according to the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) saying that they stand to get listed on the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) list if they fail to pay their loans.

On Wednesday, May 9^th, HELB CEO Charles Ringera noted that the unpaid loans amounted to 9.5 shillings billion. HELB Communications Director, Wavi Muigai noted that plans are in place to ensure the defaulters pay.

“They will be listed on CRB, and there are penalties, Ksh5,000 a month according to the HELB Act. People pay monthly and we keep tabs of those who pay every day,” Muigai stated

She also clarified that penalties are enacted a year after one graduate. If the loanee defaults for six months consecutively, they are added to the CRB list.

During the conference, the board officially took over the Afya Elimu Fund (AEF) in a move aimed at offering scholarships to the needy.

According to Ringera, AEF is a loan scheme that has supported over 48,188 students with a total of Ksh3.06 billion fund surpassing the initial target of Ksh2 billion

At the same time, HELB has warned that 95,000 students will miss out on loans this year, due to budgetary cuts and non-performing loans.

HELB Chief Executive Officer Charles Ringera said most of the non-performing loans are from unemployed Kenyans or those who lost their jobs after the COVID-19 pandemic struck the country.

The affected students are drawn from universities and Technical and Vocational Education and Training.

“The supplementary budget estimates for 2020-2021, there was an adjustment of Sh2.2 billion because there were no resources from Treasury. On the flip side of that, we have also lost Sh1 billion due to COVID-19 impact on loan recoveries,” he said.

HELB had an estimated budget of Sh15.5 billion but will not get Sh12.8 billion, saying some students might drop out of school due to lack of finances.

He said that they hope to fund about 450,000 students both in TVET and Universities at a total cost of about Sh12.8 billion.

That means about 95,000 students will go unfunded this year. Students have just resumed their classes and they are worried about how they are going to manage that situation. That is how the situation is since there are no revenues flowing into the country and people are unemployed.