News

TELS graduates told to pay back

March 7, 2019 10:48 am

The repayment of Tertiary Education Loan is not a major problem at this stage says Fiji Revenue and Customs Service chief executive.

Visvanath Das says there is a small number of defaulting students but it is being look into.

The students only start repayment when they get full time employment. The repayment is at the rate of 20% of their annual gross earnings.

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“There again you know many have found jobs and what we found was you know until and unless we started receiving the PAYE files from the employers, we found out that some of these students who are employed have not updated their information with the tax office and were not repaying.”

As of January the outstanding Tertiary Education Loan stood at $229m.

Board chair Dixon Seeto says students under TELS must update their information with the Revenue and Customs Service as soon as they find employment after graduation.

“If you take a loan you really have to re-pay it because it is to continue to fund education for other Fijians. And that is something that people must have responsibility to do this. If they have a case where they disagree – they can appeal and talk to us, or talk to the Solicitor General.”

The FRCS says there are some loyal students who have found jobs offshore and have made arrangements to remit their loan payments from there.