Education CS, Amina Mohamed, on Wednesday, announced the inclusion of police and other crime busters to track down HELB loan defaulters.
Announcing the board's 2019-2023 Strategic Plan at Laico Regency Hotel in Nairobi, Amina stated that the Ministry sought to recover over Ksh6.8 Billion owed by 74,008 defaulters.
“We are also going to partner with our law enforcement agencies to track down those holding jobs and yet are reluctant to stand up to be counted as responsible and patriotic citizens who honour their debts,” she proclaimed.
CS Amina added that the crackdown would commence at any time, urging employers to coordinate with Ministry officials to track down the defaulters.
The Education CS explained that payment would assist HELB to increase the number of students funded thereby progressively implementing universal funding for all Kenyans enrolled in institutions of higher learning with an adequate amount to cater for their financial needs.
She further divulged that as at December 31, 2018, a total of 213,067 loanees had cleared their loans worth Ksh21.3 Billion while a total of 153,817 accounts valued at Ksh24 Billion were repaying their loans.
“The new Strategic plan dubbed HELB Agenda 2019-2023 is costed at an estimated Ksh90.7B over the 5 year period and envisions a reformed, bolder, agile, customer-focused, FINTECH enabled and Risk Intelligent organization which accords HELB Employees a great place to work,” she conveyed.
HELB Chairman Ekwee Ethuro maintained that the board was in a better position to centralize distribution of all funding to students in institutions of higher learning.
"Funding whether in form of grants, National Government CDF/County bursaries, scholarships or even Corporates who fund students in institutions of higher learning as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility should be channelled through a centralized mechanism such as HELB that is experienced and has the infrastructure built over 24 years," he stated.
The body anchored its new strategy to four key Global, Continental and National development agendas namely; The Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), The Africa Union (AU) Agenda 2063, Vision 2030 and The Big 4 Agenda.
