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Friday, October 10, 2014

PTPTN defaulters penalised while cronies go scot-free

Why go after thousands of ringgit when cronies still owe thousands of millions of ringgit?
rafizi ptptnPETALING JAYA: Parti Keadilan Rakyat Vice President Rafizi Ramli today questioned the government’s harsh treatment of student loan defaulters when friends of Umno and BN were allowed to rack up huge debts totalling hundreds of millions.
He questioned Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s motive behind his change of heart to support instead of oppose the decision to list National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN) loan defaulters in the Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS) to recover outstanding loans.
Rafizi said in a press statement, “In my opinion, the opposition to the proposal of implementing a CCRIS blacklist is not merely a question of settling debts.
“I agree that the PTPTN debt collection rates need to be improved. But, there are other ways that PTPTN can collect its dues without resorting to CCRIS to punish borrowers.
“The Umno and Barisan Nasional leadership should not turn a blind eye towards the larger moral question and consequences of listing the PTPTN loan defaulters in CCRIS.”
He added that Khairy will need to answer the young people as to why Umno and BN are not practicing the same harsh measures towards the cronies and businessmen whose government debt is way higher than the amount of outstanding debt (estimated at RM1 billion) that might be collected through this CCRIS practice.
Rafizi also questioned why Khairy had remained silent on the issue of national debts owed to the government by close friends of Umno and BN such as Tajuddin Ramli whose debt of RM600 million appears to have been “forgiven” by the government.
Another national debt that had yet to be retrieved was the RM250 million from Shahrizat Jalil’s family’s failed cattle project.
And then there were the compensation benefits provided to companies such as toll concessionaires and gas subsidies to independent power producers.
“I believe that people are generally angry with the government for taking harsh measures against PTPTN loan defaulters to collect several thousands of ringgit from ordinary citizens, when similar action is not taken towards cronies whose borrowings are many times greater than that of the PTPTN borrowers,” said Rafizi.
Rafizi told Khairy to maintain his original stance to oppose the blacklisting of PTPTN defaulters with CCRIS because there were other ways to be prudent.
He suggested that PTPTN set a criteria of disposable income to separate those who could afford to pay but refused to do so from those who downright could not afford to pay their loans.
He gave the example of a housewife who might have difficulty repaying her loan compared to persons running their own businesses.
Rafizi said that PTPTN could also follow Australia’s approach in collecting money only from borrowers who had attained a certain salary range.
“I propose that only borrowers with a disposable income exceeding RM1,000 a month (after taking into account the number of children and dependants) be directed by PTPTN to pay off their loans,” he said.
Rafizi also proposed that PTPTN contact the borrowers to negotiate a fee schedule since PTPTN has admitted that they had the borrower’s complete data.
“If they still refuse to pay, then PTPTN can resort to advertising their names as defiant debtors in the newspapers and media as a way to compel them to pay,” he suggested.
This method has been used by scholarship bodies such as Petronas and Mara to collect education debts.
According to Rafizi, “Using CCRIS really victimises people especially in these pressing economic times. This is why I think it is immoral to pursue the PTPTN borrowers while the country’s largest debtors which consists of cronies are being spoilt.”

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