MPs propose ways to boost HESLB finances

DODOMA: THE National Assembly has proposed a number of ways to boost Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB)’s finances and improve collection of money loaned to beneficiaries.

The House came up with the proposals that were later adopted as resolutions after the legislators deliberated on the report tabled by the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, culture and Sports, Ms Husna Sekiboko.

The report evaluated and assessed the performance of two ministries and their institutions between February 2024 and January 2025.

The ministries whose performance was assessed and evaluated by the committee are the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Ministry of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports.

According to committee chair, having assessed the performance of the loans board, it established that it was facing a number of challenges including shortage of sufficient funds to finance a good number of qualified students who keep on increasing each academic year, failure to recover all the money loaned to beneficiaries and absence of alternative sources of money to boost its finances.

In their resolutions reached after deliberating on the report, the MPs called upon to the government to make structural changes to the loan board so that it can operate as a revolving fund.

The measure will help the board to have assurance on the availability of funds. They also asked the government to increase funds allocated for the loans board to be able to finance a good number of qualified applicants.

Furthermore, the legislators directed the government to come up with a refined loan recovery system by integrating beneficiaries’ information contained in their national IDs.

The legislators said the arrangement will enable the board to accurately capture beneficiaries’ details, simplifying loan recovery later on.

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Also, in the list of strategies, the MPs directed the government to devise other alternative sources of funding by involving private sector and other stakeholders.

On top of that, the House called upon the government to make deliberate efforts to sensitise the public on the importance and benefits of repaying loans.

The legislators said until now loans recovery system is not elaborate and strong enough due to a number of factors, including absence of friendly methods of debts collections, failure to integrate beneficiaries’ national IDs details in loan recovery system and lack of understanding on the importance of repaying loans.

Last September, HESLB announced that a total of 245,799 students were expected to benefit from the government’s 787bn/- loan allocation for the 2024/2025 academic year.

Of this, more than 284.8bn/- were set aside for over 88,000 first-year students.

Since the loans board started operating in 1994/1995 academic year, the government has issued loans amounting to 7.2tri/-, benefiting 754,000 students, of whom 226,292 have repaid them.

By the end of 2023, loans amounting to 1.34 tri/- had been reimbursed.

The Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB) was established in 2005 under Act No 9 of 2004, commencing operations in July of the same year.