The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) has announced that over Ksh.40 billion is still outstanding from loan defaulters who borrowed from last year to as far back as over two decades ago.

HELB Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Monari intimated that the loans date back to over 20 years and repayment of the monies is becoming an uphill task.

Speaking to Citizen TV on Tuesday, CEO Monari said that 51,594 students who graduated over 20 years ago are holding Ksh.8 billion and those who graduated 17 to 12 years ago, 23,786, are holding Ksh.6.6 billion.

Similarly, he said that the Board is targeting those between 1 and 11 years ago, about 230,000, who are holding about Ksh.26 billion. 

"They are in between jobs and are still settling down," he said.

About 11 percent of active accountants, 2,420, are currently repaying and 2,000 have completed paying. 

"We have 18,000 accountants who are not paying and these are in private practice holding various accounting firms. Only 18pc (2,115) of practicing doctors are paying and we have 11,701 who are not repaying," Monari added.

The profession with the best repayment rate, according to Monari, is teachers as 44,00 are repaying and around 3,500 have defaulted.

"We have given loans to over 23,000 lawyers and only 2,644 have paid their loans and the rest are not servicing their loans. Out of 24,883 graduated engineers, only 1,594 have completed their loans and only 894 are paying," he noted.

He argued that the challenge with collecting the loans is mainly informed by the informal employment in the private sector, making it hard to trace defaulters.

HELB loans are offered to support students with tuition fees and are repayable after graduation with an interest rate of 4 percent per annum.

This comes after HELB blacklisted 71,806 loan defaulters in its efforts to recover outstanding debts.

CEO Monari said that the amount owed is enough to fund the education of about 289,000 learners in colleges and universities for one academic year.