TANZANIA: IDs offer hope for student debt recovery

Hopes in Tanzania for the recovery of more than US$397 million in outstanding debt from thousands of defaulting higher education students loans lies mainly with the introduction of national identity documents early next year, writes James Mwakisyala for East African Business Week.

The outstanding debt has built up since 1994 when the government decided to subsidise tuition fees for students entering university to allow for a large number of high school graduates to pursue higher education, especially children from poor families.

The Tanzanian Government has admitted that it has been a Herculean task to recover outstanding loans and to track down beneficiaries. Only 69,143 students out of thousands of beneficiaries have cleared their financial obligations totaling $606.5 million. To date, Tanzania has not had national IDs which makes it difficult to track down anybody.
Full report on the East African Business Week site