Chandapiwa Baputaki
19 November 2009
Gaborone — A senior Ministry of Education (MoE) official has said they have failed to recover loans from students because they have not kept proper records.
Deputy permanent secretary responsible for Tertiary Education and Funding, Golekanye Setume said on Tuesday that loan recovery has always been a challenge for the ministry because of poor data. He said that as a result, some students who completed their studies and wanted to repay the loans had to be sent back home because the ministry could not find their records. However, a team has been selected to compile the record of expenses for each student per year. "Within a year, we want to be able to release each students' record and send the statements to them on annual basis," he said. He added that the records of new students who started this year will be kept properly.
"Even if we do not have the records, we will not be sending back anyone who comes forward to pay now. We will allow them to pay what they can afford while we do the balancing and checking later," Setume said. Recovery of loans has been a thorny issue at the ministry. Early this year, it was revealed that the ministry is owed about P300 million by graduates it has sponsored for higher education. Last year, the ministry advertised to hire independent debt collectors. But the idea was abandoned when it was found that it wiuld be too costly to engage the private debt collectors.
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