By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

SENATOR Ranard Henfield has been included on a list of people with outstanding delinquent loans to the Education Loan Authority.

His name was included alongside 98 others in a notice published in a local newspaper yesterday.

“We have not been able to contact the following persons by telephone or any other means and wish to bring to your attention the following persons with outstanding delinquent student loans,” the notice said.

When contacted yesterday, Mr Henfield said he was shocked, saying his loan was paid off more than a decade ago. “This is news to me,” the government appointed senator said. “I’ll reach out to them to clarify if their records reflect my final payment back in 2004.”

The ELA started giving loans around 2000.

In 2017, Education Minister Jeff Lloyd said $156 million was owed to the programme with 4,700 loans issued for 26 disciplines at that point. The default rate was 75 percent.

In January, Mr Lloyd said said the delinquency recovery rate of $60,000 to $80,000 per month needed to be increased to $400,000 to $500,000 if the authority could put a dent in what is owed.

Warning that his and the ELA’s “patience has simply run out”, the minister slammed the “stubborn and recalcitrant” defaulters who refused to enter even settlement discussions, adding that they faced having their credit standing “permanently tarnished” when The Bahamas’ first-ever Credit Bureau goes live within the next view years.

Last year ELA Chairperson Miriam Emmanuel said nearly 500 borrowers paid off their student loans through the government’s student loan repayment incentive programme which was established in February 2016.

To that date some 3,938 loans worth $42.56 million had been awarded to borrowers in New Providence, she said, with another 669 loans worth $7.41m awarded in Grand Bahama while 126 loans worth $1.39m were awarded in the Family Islands.