…insists loan defaulters are liable to prosecution
Akintunde Sawyer, managing director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), has described the applicants’ accounts visibility mandate, which allows the agency to monitor beneficiaries’ accounts as a ‘latent tool’ for the successful recovery of loans given to students.
Sawyerr disclosed this in an interview at Channels Television’s Hard Copy programme when emphasising that the mandate for account visibility is a critical tool in ensuring the sustainability and efficiency of the student loan scheme.
“We take a mandate from them that allows us to access their accounts. We have visibility on their accounts; that’s one of the reasons we take their BVN.
“For instance, if we’re seeing N10 million or N15 million going into the account every month and such a person claims he/she don’t have a job, how do you explain this,” he queried
He emphasised that the agency has a mandate that allows it to take the funds back.
However, Sawyerr reiterated that the loan is not a slave contract, as he emphasised that the fact that people have taken a NELFUND loan doesn’t mean they cannot go abroad.
“People who have the NELFUND loan can move abroad, they can go and further studies abroad; and they can work abroad,” he noted.
Furthermore, the NELFUND boss explained that if the loan beneficiaries fail to pay the loan, then they are liable to prosecution.
Meanwhile, Sawyerr speaking on the recent change of the student’s upkeep allowance to academic sessions, said it was meant to streamline the payment.
“In our first year of operation, we said students could apply for the upkeep, which is N20,000 a month for the maximum period of one year.
“However, what has happened is we’ve had students who have applied midsession, and those who have applied after midsession,” he noted.
He explained that the student upkeep loan, which is contingent on the institutional loan being applied for, should be in tandem with the institution’s academic calendar.
“The commitment from NELFUND is to pay 100 per cent of the institutional fees to the institutions on behalf of the students.
“If we carry on paying this N20,000 throughout the calendar year per month, what happens is that there’ll be a doubling up. So people will be collecting upkeep loans all the way through for the rest of the calendar year even though they’ve applied for a new session and they’ll be receiving upkeep for the new session,” he stated.
