By Chilungamo Missi
Blantyre, Mana: The Higher Education Students Loans and Grants Board (HESLGB) says loan recovery from former beneficiaries has improved in 2022 as the Board is collecting K20 million monthly which is higher than what they used to collect previously.
Last year the Board was collecting K2 million per month.
In an interview with Malawi News Agency (MANA) on Wednesday, HESLGB Communications Officer, Millie Kasunda attributed the strides to new strategies which the Board has employed.
She said: “We are working with employers to make sure that they help us collect money from former beneficiaries. According to Loans Board Act, all employers in Malawi are obligated to inform us if they have graduates who are former beneficiaries and once they declare that to us they must decide on how they will pay back the loan.
“Apart from that, individuals who are former beneficiaries can, on their own, make onetime payment or monthly repayments, or arrange with their employers so that they can be deducted from their salaries and the money remitted to us.”
The Board has linked with Credit Reference Bureau so that anybody who is a former beneficiary and has not settled their loan, should not get a loan from any financial institution until they have settled the loan with the Board.
Kasunda, therefore, asked beneficiaries to repay their loans in order for the Board to collect more money and create a fully-fledged revolving fund for the loan scheme so that new students who have been selected to universities should also benefit.
In a separate interview, one of the beneficiaries, Felix Misomali who graduated from Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences in 2015 and finished his loan repayment this year urged fellow beneficiaries who have not repaid their loans to pay back.
He said: “I would like to encourage all people who benefitted from this loan from various higher learning institutions to settle their loans because failing to do so is killing other people’s future who are failing school due to lack of fees.”
 says loan recovery from former beneficiaries has improved in 2022 as the Board is collecting K20 million monthly which is higher than what they used to collect previously.){kind=link}