The Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) says it is working aggressively to retrieve loans from graduates who benefited from the facility when they were in school and are currently working in the formal sector.
According to them, retrieving monies from the formal sector is less difficult because“if you work within a formal organization, they will be paying social security on your behalf…we would track you and communicate with your employer to make the necessary deductions on your behalf.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”HBHr3Qe5kv8oFkN29kvPP423zSjS9boX”]It was reported that about 35,000 graduates are currently owing the SLTF to the tune of GH¢78 million.
Managers of the fund say some of the beneficiaries took the loans as far back as 2005.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show the Chief Executive Officer of the fund, Sylvia Naa Boamah explained that the reported number are persons whose payments are due but not necessarily defaulting.
“Once you take the loan, you are given a maximum of ten years to finish paying it off. So when you take it in year one, and you finish school at the end of the third year for example, you are given two years additional grace periods to find a job and settle in one,” she added.
She assured that “we are working aggressively at ensuring that we bring onboard everybody who is due to repay.”
She also pleaded with those who owe the fund to pay back to enable others have access to it saying “as you know the fund is an inter-generational one and so it is sustained by repayment.”
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana