THE government yesterday gave the Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB) two-weeks to take legal measures against officials involved in the misappropriation of billions of shillings through multiple loan allocations and repayments which went unrecorded in books of accounts.
The Minister for Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training, Prof Joyce Ndalichako, told reporters in Dar es Salaam that according to the initial findings of a special Controller and Auditor General (CAG) audit, the fund misappropriations appeared to stretch way back to 1994.
For example, although the still-ongoing audit showed that some 262 students received 10.7 billion/- in loans, official HESLB records indicated that they were supposed to repay only 5.5bn/-, Prof Ndalichako said.
Similarly, a total of 247 students who repaid 25 per cent of their initial loans to the tune of 270.8 million/- were never included in the list of students who have been servicing their loans, the minister added.
She cited another apparent embezzlement trick uncovered by the special CAG audit as some students receiving loans from both HESLB and its Zanzibar Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (ZHESLB) counterpart body.
There are also cases of one student’s name appearing among loan beneficiaries in more than one institution of higher learning, and one bank account being used by more than one student to receive loans from HESLB, according to Ndalichako.
In summary, a total of 105,202 students who received 712.8bn/- as loans between the years 1994-2013 have yet to repay their debts, the audit findings showed.
A total of 2,619 students with matured 14.4bn/- loans appeared to have used the same Form Four index number to receive the loans while with two different colleges, she said, although she did not name the colleges.
Weaknesses were also found among contractors hired by the board to identify and collect outstanding loan debts, with records showing some 462 students (debtors) were owed a total of 3.6bn/- compared to the actual figure of 2.8bn/-.
“The difference of 828,348,032/- allowed the contracted debt collectiors to be paid higher commissions than they deserved,” Ndalichako said, adding that in some cases different debt collectors were paid commissions for identifying the same students.
According to the minister, although the contractors were supposed to receive 2.5 per cent commissions on collected debts, the problem arose when two contractors produced the same records of debt on the same students due to multiple university admissions.
“This kind of thing would normally draw attention, but it didn’t,” she noted.
The audit also indicated that allowances for board members and personnel had also been increased by using funds that were supposed to go towards providing student loans.
The minister said the audit showed that HESLB has a lot of explaining to do, and explained that the two-week ultimatum was for rectifying actions to be taken, including initiating concrete steps to restore the misappropriated monies.
Such steps should include identifying all remaining student loan debtors and collecting from them, including students who received loans on the same Form Four index numbers, she stated.
She further directed the board management to make sure that loopholes in the loans issuance and debt collection systems were plugged forthwith.
The board must also provide a detailed statement on 168 suspected fake University of Dar es Salaam students who appeared to have received 531.3m/- in loans and another 919 from the University of Dodoma who apparently received 2.5bn/-, Ndalichako concluded.
Both universities have reported that they did not have the listed students in their enrolment records, yet the money is nowhere to be seen in the board’s books of accounts.
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