The government's Educational Guaranteed Loan Programme, which has facilitated tens of millions of dollars in student loans, could be restructured and re-launched, Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald said yesterday. Fitzgerald said he intends to soon present a comprehensive report to Cabinet. "I will take [it] to get their approval for the steps I wish to take to restructure the program, pursue those who have not been paying and also find ways to assist them with paying interest," he told The Nassau Guardian.

"We want to put forth a very comprehensive plan and not just go after persons who owe money, but ensure that they have a job, and see what we can do to assist those who may not be working and have outstanding loans." The program was suspended by the Ingraham administration in 2009 with over $70 million in outstanding student loans. Fitzgerald said he would soon be able to reveal to the public the exact amount owed to the government, but $100 million is the total amount guaranteed and it is not that high.

Successive governments have claimed they would pursue student loan repayment, but have failed to recover the tens of millions of dollars that are outstanding. The Christie administration recently brought in Grant Thornton Bahamas, an accounting and consulting firm, to audit the Scholarship and Educational Loan Division in the Ministry of Education. Fitzgerald said the ministry could begin investigating people indebted to the government soon after a report of the loan program is submitted, which he expects will take place within three to four weeks.

"It goes as far as whether we have to institute legal proceedings in the court or work through the National Insurance Board to find persons who are employed now and are just refusing to pay the money they owe to the government," he said. "We are going to be very aggressive in that." Fitzgerald said special attention is being placed on the period 2000 to 2002 -- before the audit system was put in place to determine whether anyone who received funds failed to use the money for schooling.

"I am extremely concerned, but unfortunately when the program first started between 2000 and 2002, there was very little or no accountability for how the funds were spent and the board was not appointed until 2002 to manage the fund, and unfortunately it just allowed for a lot of slippage and abuse," Fitzgerald said. Former Minister of Education Desmond Bannister has claimed that the previous Christie administration allowed the program to "grow wild" between 2002 and 2007.

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