Deputy Minister: Taking legal action against PTPTN defaulters too time consuming

PTPTN abandons legal action against defaulters and reverts to the old system of blacklisting

(The Sun Daily) – Only 3,175 National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) defaulters were summoned to court in the first five months of this year, the Dewan Negara was told.

This is despite 373,975 loaners — or close to 20% of the overall PTPTN borrowers — having not repaid a single sen upon the completion of their studies.

A further 627,350 borrowers have made inconsistent payments.

Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching said while the ministry would take legal action from time to time, it was an ineffective measure due to the amount of time required.

“The problem with taking legal action is it’s time consuming. Sometimes, we even find difficulties locating them (the borrowers), maybe because they have moved abroad.

“For your information, a total of 778 summonses were filed in court in January this year, 1,174 for February, and 1,223 in March. There were none in April and May, maybe because it was close to the general election,“ she said.

Teo however did not provide any figures for court actions taken by the ministry since Pakatan Harapan became the ruling government.

She was responding to a suggestion from Senator Raj Munni Sabu that instead of enforcing any future new loan repayment system on every single borrower, the ministry should only crack down on those defaulters.

Commenting further on this, Teo said instead of taking them to court, the ministry would subject them to a Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS) blacklisting.

She said this would lead them to have difficulties in making future loans, including for the purchasing of houses and cars.

“PTPTN has also been given the responsibility to study on alternative methods on how they can increase loan repayments and encourage more borrowers to pay more consistently,“ she added.