His Excellency the President of the Republic of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta has declined to extend the grace period for repaying the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) loans.
President Uhuru communicated this via a memorandum sent o the National Assembly speaker Justin Muturi where he revealed that he wants the current terms to stay.
Besides, the HELB loans, President Uhuru also referred to the Insurance Professional Bill and the Information Communication Technology Practitioners Bill.
“Delaying the date of commencement of repayment of students’ loans will consequently reduce the amount recovered by HELB as well as decrease the number of beneficiaries annually.
“This is because the graduates who are not in formal employment or those that are not likely to declare that they are generating income are likely to fail or delay repayment of their loans,” said President Uhuru.
“With the National Assembly having already gone ahead on recess, it means that the three bills may not be reconsidered and shall therefore lapse at the end of the term of the 12th parliament,” said the speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi.
According to speaker Justin Muturi, if the 13th parliament had a cause for reconsideration regarding the three bills then this could happen under a new presidency.
As a way of wooing the youth, presidential aspirants Kenya Kwanza’ Dr William Ruto and Azimio La Umoja’s Kenya Alliance’s Engineer Raila Odinga have since included HELB loans on their presidential campaign agendas with the latter revealing that he plans to offer interest-free loans while the former pledged to convert the loan into a grant.