AMERICAN FIRM TO TRACK DOWN ALL OWING TERTIARY GRADUATES

MBABANE – Thousands of tertiary graduates who owe government scholarship loans are in for a shock as Trans-ITC has been roped in to assist in tracking down all defaulters.

As a result of the successful engagement of this American company, which has a branch in Swaziland, Winnie Magagula, the Minister of Labour and Social Security declared yesterday: “You may be hiding underwater or underneath a stone, we will track you down.”

Trans Union has a reputation for keeping data of people’s credit records, which are accessible by its clients.
Its clients include but not limited to financial institutions and furniture shops. In Swaziland, a person applying for a bank loan or buying furniture on credit is subject to a credit record investigation.

In case the investigation reveals that he has a long outstanding debt with a particular establishment, he may be denied the loan or be advised to settle the debt in full.

However, Magagula pointed out that Trans Union-ITC was not engaged to blacklist people but would use its high technology to get hold of them. She explained that this move was meant to ensure the people who owed government received correspondences and advices from government on how and when to pay back the money. “Trans Union-ITC will get the names of the people who owe and put them on the database,” she said.

Asked by this newspaper if she was aware that such a move had a potential to ruin the lives of so many people in terms of getting bank loans, the minister insisted that Trans Union-ITC would not blacklist the past scholarship beneficiaries.
However, she said the best way to avoid contacts with ITC or appearing on its database was to service the outstanding debts.

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