Private collection agency with "teeth"?
Is he saying the Government has no teeth?

Minnis is certainly a toothless puppet of a PM....just ask King Sebas of Lucky Charms who pulls all of his strings. LMAO

"the Authority's Board was about to hire a private collection agency "with the teeth" to pursue deadbeat borrowers after its staff found themselves "overwhelmed" by the sheer magnitude of the task."

"Management is of the view, however, that it is the intention of the Government to continue to financially support the Authority as a going concern. The Authority continues to operate at a deficit, and therefore, continued financial support of the Government is essential for its operations."

ANOTHER CROCK OF BULL! Terminate ALL of them!

They're laughing at you. Me too. LMAO

You are too kind.

He should start by stating those who will be exempt after they make one phone call!

The current list of delinquent borrowers and guarantors of the long past due loans has been carefully pruned, i.e. all politically sensitive loans totaling millions of dollars have been forgiven and written off by authority of the Ministers of Finance and Education. LMAO

Yes or no - beloved comrade Joseph, father Jesus, think your son forgive me if I dare to post whats up in my mind calling out when it comes to a particular substantive crown minister's on the job in the Imperial red cabinet guard. Yes, no?

Go ahead, Comrade! Knock yourself out!

Way to go Mr. Lloyd, collect every dime! There is absolutely no excuse for students not to repay those loans. The government was very lenient in the past. I remember when I first returned home from college, I was paying $25 per week to repay my student loan. They accepted that because I was only initially able to secure a part time job. Once I started working in my field of study, I was able to increase my monthly payments and repay the entire loan within 2 years.

We need to stop believing that the government owes us everything. If you borrowed the money, whether its for a student loan or a mortgage, you signed an agreement in good faith, so you are obligated to pay it back. It's that simple!

Just more hot air from a useless and highly compromised politician. Lloyd is nothing but a tool. LMAO

Step #1...put them to the top of the list of bad debtors when the credit rating comes out...along with all the dead beats...

Funny how this lousy FNM government is outraged and determined to go after Bahamian students for daring to get an education, but has no such outrage about the thousands of foreign family island landowners who owe many hundreds of millions in unpaid real property taxes. Back home, the government would take and sell for tax their land. In the Bahamas, the government is only interested in hammering the poor and local middle class for tax delinquency. Sickening crew.

the students got an education with borrowed money, taxpayer money. Money they promised to pay back. There is no reason the government can't collect outstanding debt from ALL who owe, and they should!

Is there a reason a company like commonwealth breweries or commonwealth bank, which rakes in tens of millions in profits cannot even pay a 19 percent corporate income tax (a fifth of what they would pay anywhere else) to fund our development instead of putting all the taxes on the poor and middle classes? There is, in fact, no reason for tertiary education not to be completely free, apart from the ignorance of the uncle tom clowns who govern us. We tax the poor and give the rich a free ride. The old Bahamian way...

I mean't to say a 10 percent corporate income tax

Its the same thing with taxes, B.O.B, mortgage cooperation, the light bills at BEC and the water bill, seem we as Bahamians just to like to pay our bills. Its about time.

That's it: blame the poor. No hint in all this that maybe, just MAYBE a 12 percent tax on consumption (which hits the poorest hardest) and a tax system that lets the rich off scot free may be to blame for people's pattern of delinquency, eh?

Don't think the person blamed the poor, they blamed those who don't pay their bills. Or do you think people who don't pay their bills are poor?

Bahamians have long been debt evaders, way before they ever heard of VAT! It starts with the elected M.P.'s!

Every year they say the same thing and then nothing. I truly hope that not only do they go after those who owe, but also name and shame them, but i won't hold my breath. I now don't believe much that is said over here until i see it happen.

Just publish the list of loans delinquents in the Tribune, Guardian, Punch, Journal and Government website ............ But that will be a list of Who's Who in the country ....... Carl Bethel and Alfred Sears gave away our Treasury money to their "friends, families, cronies, and lovers' children" twenty years ago and it all went up in smoke ......... They living in Canada, US and England now.

The handful of poor public school children who got ELA loans and fell on hard times will get squeezed while the "muck-a-mucks" laugh at Jeff Lloyd dem.

Thats the problem. I think if they are honest we would be shocked who among the so called upper classes/ politically connected classes had children who received "loans" for college. But you know those names have been pruned- Notice I didnt say "paid off and pruned"- just pruned. The scruggglin' unconnected middle and working classes of this country ketch all the hell and all the burdens of this nation.

All efforts should be expended to collect those funds.The list of all persons who are delinquent should be printed and the amount outstanding.I am tired of being made to pay through taxes for the folly,mismanagement and outright theft of the state's resources.

So struggling ex-students are thieving the state's resources? What about the wealthy corporations and individuals who pay no income tax and sit around complaining? Your moniker should be "bonehead"

Are those wealthy corporations and individuals not paying items they are obligated to pay? No. No one forced these students to take loans out, but they did say when you take a loan out these are the repayment terms. Which the students agreed to at the time and now do not. As it is all that has happened is it has ruined the student loans for the next generation.

Yes or no it's not an exclusive comrade student issue is it.... lets not masks the real issue... which is same over at Bank of Bahamaland where some politically appointed board members had to either approve or oversea the approvals and then do nothing years about collecting the payments on the $200 million in bad loans?
Is there a board that approves the loans and if so what do we know about its comrade members and their lending culture?
Yes, no is it a politically appointed board and are we laud board members (past and present) for the $100 million bad debt issue and move on not to raise concerns?

This is very similar to BOB. Nothing will happen. Not even the FNM believes the people have to pay the country back. This is a socialist nation. Bahamians feel that the country owes them and should make them rich. Nothing will come of this but some news stories.

So the money that goes to build schools, police stations, hospitals and pay those who occupy them comes from outer space, then? I thought it came from the taxes paid by the same Bahamian people who you now claim must be socialists. Ignorance is killing us, my friend.

We're 8 billion in debt and growing every year. We still defecit hundreds of millions. VAT hardly scratches the surface. You paying VAT on chicken in the bag does not mean this will cover Bahamians defaulting on BOB mortgages or student loans. Are you even serious? If Bahamians are paying these costs, why is the Bahamas currently rated at junk bond status?

Where does this well-repeated notion that "Bahamians feel that the country owes them" actually come? How many of these students have jobs?

It comes from ignorant morons (most of whom have little and produce even less) but are brainwashed by right-wing ultra-capitalists who in turn benefit from a country that taxes the poor instead of the rich and claims to have zero responsibility to spend the contents of the consolidated fund on the people (mostly the poor and middle classes) who overwhelmingly fund it.

What you are saying is the country owes poor Bahamians because they are poor. You are supporting the saying with your argument.

"Right wing ultra capitalists". Here, in the Bahamas?

You cannot compare this ELA with what Pindling did back in the late 60s and early 70s with sending eligible persons off to school to run the civil service........ this was a FNM grand giveaway leading up to the 2002 election ........ and the PLP abused it as well ............... Now chickens are coming home to roost ....... kitty empty.

In order to receive the loan, a co-signor (ie parents) was required.

If the burrowers do not want to pay its loan, go after the co-signor. Very simple! And you watch how quickly things will turn around.

All that nonsense about people are struggling and proving low income is absolute BS. It is not taxpayers problem that you blew the money or an under achiever. You knew what you were getting into when you signed the documents.

Momoyama you are very annoying!

Yes or no ma comrades - no need paint cloud of belittling negativity over an entire colony's people when other counties - USA and Canada included - are experiencing student loan delinquencies. Yes, no let's first look at "travel and other expenses" over at education ministry and at departments.

Comarade, the U.S.A. has students strapped by debt because they have turned college into a mega business for the rich! Britain has started to follow suit, as usual. Basically, if Governments did what they were supposed to do with the money they receive from taxes there would be plenty to go around for necessities for all. This capitalist thing is not working, mainly due to human greed..

Yes, no ma comrade DDK, far short cry from long term return on investment by PeoplesPublicPurse's during the years when minister education Cecil and Pindling, sent students off schools higher learning in the US, Canada and England - to return home begin years contributing towards development we Colony of Out Islands. Yes, no maybe even "big use words" Jeff may have been a recipient of Cecil and Pindling's higher learning outreach?

In Britain you only pay back once you earn over a certain amount. Therefore if the education did not result in you achieving a higher income, you don't pay it back.

Repost:
Decades of government sponsored programs that are nothing more than a redistribution of wealth from the haves to the have-nots, usually to buy votes, combined with the moral hazard of always granting amnesties and discounts to those who do not pay their debts, have created the irresponsible culture and attitudes that Bowe complains about today.

The fundamental reasons for the failure of the Education Loan Authority (ELA) belong squarely in the laps of Alfred Sears and Carl Bethel. These two bozos each had the opportunity but did nothing to introduce and implement measures that would have assured the self-sustaining nature of the ELA for decades to come. For both Sears and Bethel it was just too politically expedient for them to do nothing, even though they knew full well what the consequences would be. As for Lloyd's assurances to change things, it's all just political hot air because Minnis, like his predecessors, Ingraham and Christie, is not going to do anything to upset those voters who have effectively stolen from the ELA, and in the process have stolen the future of needy students coming after them.