By Damion Mitchell, Staff ReporterSOME 50 DELINQUENT borrowers who are indebted to the Students' Loan Bureau (SLB) could be facing legal action if they fail to regularise their balances soon, Lenice Barnett, the Bureau's Executive Director said yesterday.
She did not say what amount was outstanding, but at least one-fifth of loan beneficiaries are in arrears.
In recent years the SLB established a 'deadbeat campaign' which includes publishing in the newspapers messages imploring debtors to repay their loans and the particulars of debtors, and pursuing legal action in the courts to recover outstanding sums from borrowers who fail to arrange to repay their loans.
"When we publish pictures, or we take them to court we recover quite a bit," Mrs. Barnett said.
According to Mrs. Barnett, while the 'deadbeat campaign' has been somewhat effective, "until we get to two per cent delinquency, we have a difficult job to do."
"Some people have a problem with the amount to repay per month but the majority just do not want to pay."
She said the delinquency rate was about 20 per cent or just under a quarter, of those benefiting from loans.
Within the last three years, the Bureau has been disbursing loans based on a revolving scheme programme, which involves investing repaid loans to generate more funds to be made available in loans.
In the meantime, only about 170 loan applications have been received since the SLB began accepting such requests on January 15, Natalie Gollab, public relations officer reported yesterday. The Bureau is able to process some 200 loans each day. This year some $500 million has been projected to be disbursed in loans and another $85 million in grants.
Miss Gollab said the Bureau would be undertaking several initiatives to encourage persons to submit their loan applications before the April 30 deadline. Between next week Tuesday and Thursday, representatives from the SLB will be at the Northern Caribbean University in Mandeville to accept applications from students in central Jamaica.
Each student has a maximum of 10 years (including the course of study) to repay the loan. Interest is accrued at 16 per cent throughout the life of the loan.
