Africa-Press – Botswana. Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has advised the Ministry of Higher Education to refrain from writing off student and employee loans.
The recommendation was made during a PAC meeting in Gaborone recently, where committee members expressed concern over the ministry’s current approach to recovering outstanding loans. Professor Nelson Torto, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Higher Education, disclosed that the ministry had aimed to recover P25 million from loan repayments in the fiscal year 2021-2022 but successfully recovered only P13 million.
Committee Chairperson and Member of Parliament for Bobirwa, Mr Taolo Lucas, highlighted challenges in loan recovery, citing high unemployment rates and deficiencies in recovery methods. He questioned the ministry’s capacity to manage the loan facilitation effectively. Mr Lucas pointed out that the ministry appeared to recover loans primarily from civil servants, leaving other borrowers unaccounted for.
“It’s concerning as it seems like they are only recovering from those who have joined the civil service, and others go scot-free,” he said.
Similarly, Member of Parliament for Maun East, Mr Goretetse Kekgonegile emphasised cautiousness in extending intervention measures to all graduates. He noted that some individuals had been in debt for 20 years but remain willing to repay. He emphasised the need for the ministry to adopt innovative strategies for recovering scholarship loans rather than simply writing them off.
Mr Kekgonegile suggested that the ministry should proactively reach out to the public to motivate and incentivise repayment. He added that the ministry should not limit itself to formal platforms, as many graduates operated within informal setups that generated funds for various courses.
Member of Parliament for Gamalete, Mr Boniface Mabeo, argued that the ministry needed more than just advertisements; an elaborate communication strategy with diverse approaches was necessary to aid loan recovery.
“If you can assign officers to handle informal collection efforts targeted at these groups, you could recover a significant amount of money. People are willing to pay; it’s a matter of reaching out to them where they are because you would find all of them at BURS,” he stated.
In response, Prof. Torto acknowledged some gaps in the current system and explained that the estimated recovery of P25 million was based on the assumption that those funded would be employed. He mentioned that the initial assumption was that over 500 graduates annually would find employment, but only 10 percent actually did.
“We now need to adopt a different method of estimation,” he stated.
He also noted that, in the interest of maximising resource utilisation, it might have been worthwhile to pursue old debts, which could have been written off. However, these debts were not written off due to the transition from the previous ministry. He emphasised the need to strengthen capacity through collaboration with BURS and to identify individuals who still owed students loans.
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