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{
"id": 916809,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/916809/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Milgo",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 13174,
"legal_name": "Milgo Alice Chepkorir",
"slug": "milgo-alice-chepkorir"
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"content": "money, interest is charged. At the end of it, that candidate does not get any gainful employment. As we speak, there are few graduates who are employed out there. I come from the education sector and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) in the recent past has become a better employer. However, the TSC has a backlog of up to even 12 years. There are students who graduated 12 years ago, but have not been employed. These are the same graduates who went through HELB and interest of Kshs5,000 has been accruing since that time. Madam Temporary Speaker, recently when I went home, I met a very poor parent who is a tea plucker. Her son was given only Kshs90,000 after he was lucky to get money through a fundraiser. Later on, it took time to access this loan, but he eventually got Kshs90,000. Right now, he has to repay Kshs500,000 and yet, the same boy has not been employed. Our Government should know what is going on at the HELB. In addition to that, the Government, through the Ministry of Education, should know that come the future, HELB will no longer be useful to students because of the fact that rather than helping them, it is become a nightmare. I looked at the Auditor-General’s Statement where he said that HELB may never recover over Kshs24.6 billion because about 70,000 of the defaulters that are known are in Kenya. When we talk about those defaulters, I wish we had a critical analysis to be able to know why they have defaulted. Do they have any employment? Recently, we were told that the Public Service jobs will be on contract basis. We were also told that if they do not start repaying their loans within only three months, they will be listed with CRB. This will make it even difficult for them to borrow in order to clear the same loans. Madam Temporary Speaker, it is high time the Committee on Education, Committee on Information and Technology or any other Committee looks into this. There must be a thorough dissection to have a paradigm shift in this institution, if it is going to serve the purpose for which it was established. Otherwise, we will talk about what is happening in HELB and create problems for our children. Like my colleague said, some of them will even commit suicide because they have no jobs and, therefore, no money to repay the loans. When some of our children owe institutions as little as Kshs3,000, they commit suicide. Recently, one committed suicide in Nyeri County because he owed a loan of only Kshs3,000, which was borrowed through the mobile phone. What about the Kshs90,000 loan which a graduate is now supposed to pay Kshs500,000? I do not know whether we shall achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in our country. This is because part of the SDGs is that we are supposed to create and ensure equity. We have been complaining about issues of not having certain groups of people in employment, for example, the female gender. Some of them may not be able to get there because of lack of funds to access education. Another major problem with the HELB is the management of these funds. What are the structures in place in HELB to identify the beneficiaries? I read somewhere that there are over 25,000 beneficiaries whose identification was not very clear. That means, in the first place, the issue of identification was not taken very seriously, because of lack of a clear management or structural system in HELB. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}