Loan defaulters delaying disbursements - Students Loan Trust Fund

The Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) has apologised to students across the country over the delay in 2019/20 disbursement of loans.

A statement signed by the Senior Public Relations Manager of SLTF, George Ferguson Laing, said the delay is due to the inability of the Fund to recover funds from borrowers

He noted that the Fund recognised that tens of thousands of students relied on the loans for various uses, including the payment of fees but it is working assiduously to restore the situation to normalcy.

Read the statement below:

DELAY IN DISBURSEMENT OF STUDENT LOANS The Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), would like to acknowledge calls from some student groups for speedier disbursement of loans for the 2019/2020 academic year. We would like to place the following on record: 1. We recognize that students in over 100 tertiary institutions across the country rely on student loans for various uses, including the payment of fees, accommodation, and the purchase of books as well as general living expenses. We are working assiduously to restore the situation to normalcy. 2. From the beginning of the academic year, the SLTF has been disbursing loans to students in batches. The challenge is that the Trust Fund has not been able to pay all beneficiaries at the same time. 3. Currently, the main sources of funding for the Fund are receipts from the GETFUND, Communications Service Tax and repayments from beneficiaries of the Fund. For some time now, the Fund has been forced to rely heavily on recovered loans to disburse to students. This is due to delays in the release of funds from the other sources. As a result, the Fund has employed various strategies to recover funds from borrowers. Much as our recovery strategies have been successful, funds recovered are not adequate to disburse to all students at a go. 4. We continue to engage with the relevant stakeholders including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance and the GETFUND to make financing available to pay students as soon as possible. 5. Over the past few days, the management of the Fund has met with various student groups, including executives of the National Union of Ghana Students, the University Students Association of Ghana, the Ghana Union of Professional Students and the Private University Students Association of Ghana. In our meetings with student leadership, we have explained the challenges we face with them, and urged them to continue to exercise restraint as Government works to resolve the issues. 6. We look forward to completing payments to our beneficiaries for the 2019/2020 academic year very soon.

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George Ferguson Laing

SLTF