HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENTS' LOANS BOARD ORDERED TO PAY STUDENTS

Deputy Minister for Finance, Mr Mwigulu Nchemba.

The government ordered the Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB) to instantly release meals and accommodation allowances to students in the country.

University of Dar es Salaam students received their allowances by Tuesday evening. “I am directing the relevant authority to release the funds today (yesterday) so that our students can resume their studies.

The Treasury has already released the funds to the Board,” Deputy Minister for Finance, Mr Mwigulu Nchemba, ordered yesterday in Parliament.

He pointed out that the Treasury released the funds on Tuesday, thus there was no reason for the authority to delay dispatching the money into students’ accounts.

On Tuesday students at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) boycotted classes over government’s delay in releasing the allowances.

The issue surfaced in the House following a request by Esther Bulaya (Special Seats - CCM) to the government to issue clear-cut explanations as to why it was delaying paying University students their allowances.

She claimed that thousands of students from higher learning institutions were going without the allowances for a number of days, thus making them unable to proceed with studies.

The lawmaker also hinted that students from St Joseph University, Dar es Salaam’s campus had also boycotted classes forcing the college’s administration to send first year students home.

“Some of these students depend fully on allowances to run their lives. How do you think they are surviving while you delay dispatching the money. We need to know the reason for this unnecessary delay,” she noted.

Mr Mwigulu apologised for such interruption, requesting the students to keep on with studies as allowances were to be paid by yesterday without further excuse.

He noted that on Tuesday, the Treasury, Universities’ management and Education and Vocational Training Ministry met and agreed on how to respond to these unnecessary problems.

“We directed that the money had to be released to students first, before going on with further discussions,” he told the House. He added that; “I would like to apologise for any inconveniences caused to our students by this delay.

We had already directed relevant authority to make sure that every student gets money today (yesterday).” The Deputy Minister asserted that such delay will not be repeated in future as the Treasury had already set down procedures to dispatch funds instantly to critical authorities like the Loan Board.

Meanwhile, after staging a one-day strike demanding release of meals and accommodation allowance from HESLB, the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) students resumed classes after their allowances were remitted into their accounts.

According to UDSM Vice-Chancellor, Prof Rwekaza Mukandala, students started to receive their meals and accommodation allowances via their bank accounts since Tuesday evening.

On Tuesday a total of 6,120 UDSM students staged a strike demanding the upkeep allowance amounting to 2.8bn/-.

Daily News