Times Of Swaziland: SOLUTION FOR SCHOLARSHIP RECOVERY

SOLUTION FOR SCHOLARSHIP RECOVERY
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The Editor on 19/06/2017 04:10:00


Sir,
Thank you for allowing me the space to make this humble suggestion to the
honourable Minister of Labour and Social Security and the Scholarship Board.  I
make this suggestion fully aware of the need to repay the scholarship so that
the funds can benefit future generations.
May I express my serious doubts regarding the engagement of a law firm in an
attempt to recover the scholarship.This is because I am fully aware that the law
alone cannot address the problems of any country but programmes and incentives
can sometimes make more meaningful progress than the law.
Engagement of a third party (like the law firm) in this process has further
financial implications to the dwindling funds of the scholarship fund- it’s a
drain.
Other questions that beg answers include; what is it that the law firm will do
differently that the Scholarship Recovery Team cannot do?  What proof of failure
and steps have they been doing towards recovering the scholarship monies to
justify the need for the engagement of a third party?
What are the monitoring programmes that they will institute to ensure that there
are gains and serious improvement by engaging a firm in this important matter? 
My point is not made to attack the Mdladla Law firm as an entity but rather on
the objectivity of the engagement. I believe there are other means that can
utilised like the use of advanced IT tracking methods.
Through using the graded tax number and/or ID number to track employment status
of former scholarship beneficiaries (which I believe guys in the IT industry can
so easily be able to do), the Scholarship Collection team can be able to keep
tabs, just like it happens with income tax and scholarship will be inherently
deducted. I also anticipate less resistance on that area since we would be
having an incentivised scholarship recovery system.
So all we need is the Scholarship Collection Team to task its workers to explore
the development of an employment status tracking system so that scholarship will
be deducted as part of lawful tax, only that this tax will already be inclusive
of a scholarship levy, to put it that way.
Then the headache would be over, there won’t be need to be chasing people up
and down. Recovering scholarship from those already in the system can also be
done through the exact exercise, comparing their income tax statements against
scholarship repayments, while ensuring that old citizens who paid long ago are
exempted from this. The fund can be self-sustaining in this way too.
I am also aware that this mechanism may have unforeseen challenges in
implementation and requires political commitment, revenue calculations among
other implications. But I so much believe it can truly work. While this may not
carry serious gains in the short-to-medium term, it can do so in the long-term
as more and more people pay.
Honourable Minister and your board, as a citizen I humbly propose and believe
the above will really improve our lives as graduates and citizens but it will
also nullify the stress and costs that your board contends with in this regard.
Fakazi Mlotshwa