OPINION: On the matter of HELB, the President is right

Like possibly thousands of Kenyans, I came across a trending video earlier this week, in which President William Ruto spoke of a university student loan advanced to him by the government in 1987. His mention of the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) triggered a red-hot furor. Many were of the opinion that the President could not have interacted with the HELB, seeing as it was established seven years after he allegedly received the loan. Allow me to share my take, from the perspective of a university student of the same era.

In the late 1980s, the National Bank of Kenya had a small but busy branch located at the bottom end of the fairly sharp hill that was Murang’a town center. This I discovered rather grievously one morning, in August 1989, while on a mission to collect my university stipend - nicknamed ‘Boom’ - from the esteemed bank.

With me on this trip was my elder sister, who had just been admitted to the University of Nairobi to study Biochemistry, while I was scheduled to join Moi University’s Faculty of Information Science. But at age 21 and 19, this was our first time to take a “long-distance” journey alone; that is to say, without our hitherto somewhat protective parents. 

You see, even though my siblings and I were born and raised in Nairobi, the District-of-Origin field on our national IDs defiantly said ‘Muranga.’ Apparently, the registrar of persons was of the stern opinion that our real home ought to be Muranga, where our forefathers were born. So here we were taking our first solo trip to the bustling town in pursuit of our allocated student stipend, our ’Boom.’

Kenya’s student loan scheme can be traced back more than half a century, to 1952, when the colonial government began advancing loans to the few Africans qualified to study abroad. This was done through an initiative known as the Higher Education Loans Fund (HELF).

Upon independence, the newly installed government discarded this scheme and opted to absorb the full cost of university education, making it virtually free for students. This was done in order to rapidly produce the skilled manpower necessary for economic progress. But within a few years, increased university enrollment meant that the government couldn’t quite afford to continue providing university education for free.

Thus, the University Students’ Loan Scheme was established in 1973, with the mandate of providing low-interest loans to students. This new scheme was managed by a department at the Ministry of Education, rather than through an independent body. Eventually, the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB), as we know it, was established more than two decades later, immediately taking up the task of provision and administration of student loans.

The loans disbursed from the 70s to the early 90s, through the USLC, were extended to all students. Everyone was eligible - all we needed was a university admission letter and a signature from our local chief verifying that we indeed hailed from his jurisdiction.

Boom was a portion of that loan and was dished out in cash, just before the beginning of each semester. We received the money through banks like NBK, KCB and Postbank, in which the government had a stake. In many cases, we would be assigned a bank that was located in the district indicated on our IDs as our place of origin, hence my visit to ‘Mo-town’ as we then called it, a nod to the American record label that had propelled the Jackson 5 to stardom in our early years.

During my time at the university, between 1989 and 1992, the cash we received was between Ksh.5,000 and Ksh.6,000 per semester, per student - a windfall fit for a king in those days - hence, ‘Boom!’

So, when my sister and I arrived at Mo-town’s hill-top bus terminus early that August morning, we bounded enthusiastically down to NBK, ready to claim our stash. But despite our early start, we found queues that were distressingly long, handling both regular customers and eager students. Two mind-numbing hours later, we trudged back up that punishing hill, hungry and more than a little frustrated, but the six grand tucked into our purses made us feel like queens.

We made two intriguing discoveries that day; the first was that the easily fortifiable Muranga town was formerly named Fort Hall by the colonizer on account of its numerous hills; the second was that the self-same hills were quite possibly the reason our hometown kinsmen were oft accused of having rough, spindly legs.

The funds each student received in cash were not for tuition, but simply for our upkeep. And you better believe we ‘upkeeped’ ourselves quite thoroughly. Born mostly in the mid-sixties and early 70s, most university students of the time belonged to what was later branded the Gen X generation. This generation would be utterly captivated by the fresh new musical trends of the time such as break dance, rap and hip-hop. And this, together with the transition of music replay apparatus from LPs to cassettes, gave rise to the one item every student had to have or utterly die – the ‘boom-box.’

Lest I utterly expire therefore, I acquired the all-important boom-box within a few weeks of my arrival at Moi University. Mine was a sleek black sound machine that could, wonder of all wonders, automatically flip a cassette from one side to the other – ‘auto-reverse,’ it was called. The thing could play music all day, non-stop! At Ksh.3,000, the box’s supplier made off with a cool 50% of my Boom. But it was well worth the expense. In my considered opinion.

Pardon this brief segue: Ahem… Gen Zs, an LP, also known as a record, was a round black vinyl disk that stored music on either side for replay on a record player. A radio cassette was a rectangular thingy made of plastic that stored music on a tape and… eish, never mind. Or should I say.. nvm.

My next Boom promptly arrived at the beginning of our second semester. This time my hopelessly clueless purchase was a stylish ‘Palazzo’ – a three-piece ladies’ fashion item from India, trending madly at the time. It comprised a silk green-colored camisole, paired with a flowing, knee-length top and loose trousers replete with green and purple patterns. I loved it! But then one day my good friend showed up at a certain event wearing her version of the outfit. And it was mustard! I can safely say that very few of us had ever beheld that wondrous new color on clothing before. It was much brighter and prettier than mine. Turned me as green as my outfit, I’ll admit.

So, I quickly contacted my supplier - an enterprising young lady who worked for an international bank but moonlighted as a fashion guru after work. Could she please accept the outfit back, I pleaded. Nope, she said. I assured her that I had only worn it once. And only for an itsy-bitsy two hours at an evening event. Never ever, she said. I was stuck with my dreary green. It had cost me Ksh.1,500, a whopping 25% of my net worth. 

This was the way many students lived – frittering away most of our Boom on mostly worthless pursuits and then trying to survive the rest of the semester on the goodwill of our benefactor, the government. One consolation was that the food at the university was quite good; we had fried chicken, I believe, on Thursdays. But I do remember also sheer wastage on the part of the students. Some would serve much more food than they needed and then just leave it on the plate. Always disturbed me greatly.

Allow me to insert a caveat here, however. Much as most students tended to use the loan in what we now recognize as an extremely irresponsible manner, there were those who by dint of their circumstances were much wiser. I know of several who used their loans to assist their families back home, helping parents with living expenses and even paying school fees for the siblings left behind. This we all found very commendable and we honored their good sense and mature attitude. But still, we kept our own decidedly not-good sense and immature ways.

Surprisingly, however, my shiny boom-box survived for at least the next fifteen years, even after I had left Uni, got married, and had my first two kids. By then, CDs had arrived and made cassettes obsolete, along with break dance and other fossil-worthy dance moves. I was now a responsible adult. But I still owed money. 

The government had advanced me Ksh.65,180 in August 1989. By the time I completed my 3-year, 6-semester course, I had drawn down at least Ksh.30,000 of the in-cash portion, while the rest had been applied by the government to my tuition and other costs. Such as the Thursday chicken. Together with interest, I owed the government Ksh.82,800 on my last day of Uni in 1992.

Until this time, the administration of the student loan scheme had been severely wanting, yet the government badly needed past beneficiaries to make good, so that future cohorts could benefit from the revolving fund.

But in true young adult fashion, the majority of beneficiaries all but ignored the fact that we owed the government. By the time I was in my late twenties, I personally did not know anyone who had voluntarily knocked on the government’s door and presented a loan officer with a cheque. And anyone who did so amidst a culture of such brazenly bad behaviour should be highly commended, in my view. Including our president.

In light of the paltry loan recovery rate therefore, HELB was established in 1995, with Prof. Chacha Nyaigotti-Chacha at the helm. And it was during this time that, to my recollection, beneficiaries began to see a serious effort in the recovery of loans. The good professor’s constant reminders soon became the bane of many a defaulter’s existence. Including mine. I had not considered the small matter of repaying debt when I was dazzling in my palazzo.

Years later, as the interest and penalties began to pile, he who had hijacked my heart and, in August 1998, permanently changed my status to wife and mother, knocked on Chacha's door and kindly settled my long-overdue debt. He too had carried student debt from his time at the University of Nairobi and knew well where the shoe hurt. So today, in storage somewhere in our home, are two certificates from HELB, boldly calligraphed in red and black, confirming our belated penance.  

Beg your pardon once more: Our beloved Morara Kebaso and other defenders of the realm; kindly, in case sometime in future you decide to mow the records at HELB, I wish to inform you that you will not find any certificate bearing my above byline. This is because I subtracted one of my English names (I had two) after Uni and happily added that of my hijacker thereafter. But it is probable that you may find others, such as that of our president.

To bring this to a conclusion, therefore: in the hotly-protested matter of the president’s repayment of his student loan, amounting to Ksh.69,000, having considered the foregoing, I submit to you that on this he is, quite possibly, on the right side of truth. In my considered opinion.

[Paulie Mugure Mugo is a published author and a co-founder of Eagles Leadership Network (ELN), an initiative that trains and equips upcoming leaders in the area of ethical governance]