The Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) has turned the screws on employers, fining nearly 2,000 firms Sh83 million, as it invokes new measures to net vanishing graduates who owe it over Sh117 billion.
Helb fined the companies for failing to submit data on workers who owe the student loans body, and is now looking at over 20,000 other employers who it believes could be shielding over 360,000 defaulters.
Government agencies are among the 1,821 employers that have been fined. Helb CEO Geoffrey Monari said that state institutions are also among the pool of over 20,000 employers being reviewed for similar violations related to disclosure of workers with pending student loans.
“Government agencies form a very small portion of the employers that have been fined. This is because most public institutions are integrated with the government HRIS (Human Resource Information System), which has significantly enhanced HELB’s ability to trace beneficiaries once they secure employment,” Mr Monari said.
“Government agencies are part of the broader pool of institutions under review. The exercise is system-wide, covering both private and public organisations,” he added.
Higher Education Loans Board CEO Geoffrey Monari.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
The agency has hired 11 debt collection agencies to trace beneficiaries who vanished after graduation.
By the end of February, 923,663 beneficiaries of Helb loans owed it Sh117 billion, though more than a third of them have not made any repayments since they graduated, the agency says.
Helb said that 363,194 graduates have not started paying the Sh38.5 billion they owe, or a third of the unpaid loans.
Helb now says it is going after employers of its graduated beneficiaries, penalising them for failure to upload their details on the State institution’s portal and to remit loan deductions.
“Helb is stepping up enforcement, and so far, 1,821 employers have been inspected, with penalties amounting to Sh83 million applied,” Mr Monari said.
The agency says it is preparing more employer files for penalisation and court action, while listing defaulted loanees on CRBs.
Mr Monari said attempts to get hold of defaulted loanees have formed a significant challenge for the agency, with 83 pe rcent of 142,340 graduates issued with repayment notices last December ignoring the call.
Helb hoped to get an additional Sh412 million in monthly loan repayments by getting hold of the graduates issued with repayment notices.
“Of these, 20,731 employers, linked to 118,095 loanees, have not commenced repayments, resulting in a shortfall of approximately Sh302 million in expected monthly deductions, an amount that would have supported about 4,500 students in universities in a single month,” the Helb CEO said.
The agency is penalising employers Sh3,000 per employee per month for any beneficiary they have employed but failed to disclose their details, and backdates the penalty to the date of employment.
It also penalises beneficiaries Sh5,000 monthly for failure to repay.
At least 377,756 loanees have been penalised Sh7.87 billion for defaulting on Sh53.55 billion they owe, Helb says.
Helb data shows that as at February, 560,469 beneficiaries were actively repaying their loans, with their debts standing at Sh79 billion.
Of the 363,194 graduates who have not started paying, the agency says it has listed nearly all of them with CRBs, a step meant to limit their access to financial institutions for loans.
“Helb has engaged 11 licensed debt collectors, with 103,571 loan accounts attached, valued at approximately Sh23.25 billion, to support recovery from persistently non-compliant loanees,” Mr Monari told Saturday Nation .
Higher Education Principal Secretary Beatrice Inyangala and Higher Education Loans Board CEO Geoffrey Monari before the Senate Education Committee on March 20, 2025.
Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Group
Data from the agency shows that it has recovered Sh3.43 billion through the debt collectors over a 12-year period.
Interestingly, more Helb data shows that two-thirds of the 560,469 Helb beneficiaries who are actively repaying their loans are doing so directly (self-repayment), raising questions over the number of beneficiaries who are formally employed but have remained under the agency’s radar.
“Currently, 366,185 loanees are actively repaying their loans directly (self-repayment), demonstrating that a significant number of beneficiaries outside formal employment are meeting their obligations,” Helb said.
An audit for the year ending June 2025 revealed that more than half a million beneficiaries who owed Helb Sh90 billion did not make any loan repayments during the year, attracting interest and other charges.
The beneficiaries who did not make any payments during the year were more than three-quarters of the 731,789 total beneficiaries whose loans had matured as at June 2025, Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu said.
“Included in the matured loans are 563,949 loan accounts with a running balance of Sh89.9 billion with no repayment of principal, interest, ledger fee or insurance fee during the year, heightening the loan default rate (exposure risk),” she said.
Helb says it has since managed to recover Sh5.3 billion from the beneficiaries who were not paying, growing overall monthly repayments by 45 percent to Sh656 million by February.
The Higher Education Loans Board's customer service desk at their Anniversary Towers offices.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Ms Gathungu faults the agency’s recovery strategy of issuing repayment notices and engaging lawyers as ineffective, saying it is not working.
Helb says it has recovered Sh24 billion in repayments from beneficiaries over the five years to June 2025, a fifth of which was recovered during the year 2024/25.
With working graduates hesitant to come forward and make repayments on their own, the agency is now going after their employers and hoping to grow the number of those paying the loans.
“Employers remain central to loan recovery. They are required to register on the Helb Employer Portal and upload their staff lists for matching with Helb records, deduct 15 percent of an employee’s basic salary for any identified loanee and remit deductions to Helb monthly,” the agency says.
The agency has a system that automatically identifies beneficiaries and their outstanding balances when their details are uploaded on its portal.
Helb also says it is engaging professional regulatory bodies in pursuit of a framework where renewal of professional licences is linked to Helb loan compliance.
“It is expected that professionals will support the development of upcoming professionals as part of a succession pathway by honouring their loan repayment obligations so that new entrants can be trained and supported,” Mr Monari said.
The agency reckons that while it requires about Sh138,000 per year to support students to cover tuition and upkeep needs, beneficiaries are currently repaying an average of Sh24,000, meaning that it takes six active loanees to support one student.
“Helb does not have plans to write off any outstanding loans. However, in cases of deceased loanees, the loan obligations are settled through the Helb self-protection scheme (insurance), ensuring that families are not burdened,” the agency said.
