Kenyans with HELB loans have a reason to smile after the institution extended the deadline for the Covid-19 penalty waiver.
The 100 per cent penalty waiver was supposed to end on April 30 but has been extended to June 30.
Higher Educations Loans Board (HELB) CEO Charles Ringera said Kenya's economy had slowed down due to the pandemic.
"We acknowledge that unemployment and underemployment and the challenging environment for loanees to start and run businesses has affected loan repayment," Ringera said in a press release.
Ringera also acknowledged that the board had been faced with funding challenges.
"This, coupled with inadequate funding from the exchequer (National Treasury) has inadvertently created a funding challenge for students seeking HELB loans," he added.
He said the waiver coincided with back to school hence the need to extend the deadline.
The 100 per cent penalty waiver will be applied to Kenyans who are still paying their HELB loans or those who haven’t started paying the loans.
The penalty waiver dubbed KamilishaMalipoyaHelb was effective from March 1.
HELB's target was to collect some Sh700 million but as of March 31, the board had collected Sh202 million from 3,500 loanees.
The institution has previously offered waivers in 2013 and 2018.
The two years saw the board receive payments totalling up to Sh1.3 billion in 2013.
And in 2018, the institution received some Sh870 million from 9,998 beneficiaries.
Ringera urged those who have not started paying off their loans to do so this year.
HELB has suffered inadequate funding in the past two financial years, a situation that has affected the disbursement of loans.
