Kuala Lumpur, May 14 (Inditop) Education loan defaulters owe the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) about 60 million ringgit ($16.95 million) and the party-owned Maju Institute of Educational Development (MIED) now wants to come down hard on them.
MIC president and MIED chairman S. Samy Vellu Wednesday said that around 95 percent of the students tried to avoid repayment and some even went to the extent of changing their addresses after completing their studies.
“Legal action will be taken against the defaulters and the guarantors. Their names will be blacklisted to prevent them from obtaining other loans and they will also be slapped with travel bans,” Vellu said at an MIED function here.
MIED, the educational arm of MIC, has disbursed around 90 million ringgit (RM) through 12,500 study loans for around 9,500 students since its inception in 1984.
The MIED stopped approving loans of RM40,000 and above in March last year as many borrowers had difficulty repaying them, The Star newspaper said.
The MIED beneficiaries are ethnic Indians who form 7.4 percent of Malaysia’s multi-racial 28 million population.
A constituent of the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional, MIC has traditionally spoken for Malaysia’s Indian community.
