The HESLB Executive Director, George Nyatega
The Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB) yesterday issued loans to 28,554 students out of 50,830 applicants for academic year 2015/2016.
The total number of students who have received loans has now reached 40,836.
The loans amounting to 155.2bn followed new development reports
that 82 per cent of the applicants for the 2015/2016 academic year had
missed the loans.
Last Friday President Dr John Magufuli directed the Finance
ministry to fast-track the disbursement of higher learning students’
loans.
The HESLB Executive Director, George Nyatega, said in a statement
availed to ‘The Guardian’ yesterday that the public should ignore
reports circulated through the social media that the Board will not
provide loans to new applicants for the 2015/2016 academic year.
He said that until yesterday the HESLB has allocated loans to a total of 40,836 qualified applicants for first year students.
“At first the Board released loans to 12, 282 applicants and the
second batch of loans beneficiaries has been released yesterday whereby
28,554 applicants have been given loans,” Nyatega said.
He said that the Board is determined to ensure that all 50,830 first year applicants are given the loans.
Nyatega however directed the applicants to visit the Board’s
website olas.heslb.go.tz and www.heslb.go.tz for further information
including checking if their applications have been approved by the
board.
He however noted that the lists of names have been sent to the respective universities for registration procedures.
On Sunday Chadema’s Youth Wing (Bavicha) called on the government
to review the loans criteria so as toaccommodate students who have been
left out, as hardly two days after President John Magufuli demanded
thatloans for universities be issued faster.
According to Bavicha, 82 per cent of the applicants for the 2015/2016 academic year had missed the loans.
Bavicha blamed the government through its Higher Education
Students' Loans Board (HESLB) for delays in approving loans to students.
Addressing journalists at the party’s headquarters in Dar es
Salaam, Bavicha Secretary General Julius Mwita threatened to mobilise
all students who missed the loans to take action over the delays.
He said the government should release the loans immediately to 82
percent of the students who qualify for the loans but have been kept out
of brackets.
“We are going to mobilise all students who have missed loans to
take action against the government so that it works on their demands,”
he said.
He said the government has been misusing funds on other things instead of prioritising on education.
Mwita accused the government of using more funds for elections,
claiming that what is currently happening to students is the consequence
of spending a lot of money in the election campaigns.
In August this year, the HESLB said that a total of 7,788 out of
68,445 loan applications for the year 2015/2016 were found to be missing
vital information.
HESLB Executive Director George Nyatega, said many of the loan
applications were missing information such as applicants’ signatures,
photos and birth certificates.
Others are guarantors’ signatures and unsigned applications by local authorities and magistrates.
He said the board found the errors after it embarked on
verification and analysis of the application following closure of the
loan application cycle for the 2015/2016 academic year.
“In the process, a total of 7,788 loan applications have been found to be missing vital information,” he said.
The Executive Director had called upon the loan applicants for the
academic year 2015/2016 whose applications were found to have errors to
go in person to HESLB offices for correction of their loan applications
before September 11 this year.
