The National Entrepreneurial Group Economic Fund (Tekun Nasional) has clarified that its accumulated losses of RM209 million in 2015 were not due to operating losses, but a result of classifying the borrowers' outstanding debts as write-offs.

Chairperson Nor Azita Abdul Rahman said Tekun Nasional recorded a profit of RM19.5 million in the financial year 2015 before performing the write-offs.

She said the write-offs involved overdue accounts of more than 24 months amounted to RM230 million involving 27,765 borrowers from 1999 to 2015.

"The losses do not mean Tekun has no money and can't afford to generate financing, instead we managed to record a profit of RM19.5 million in the financial year 2015 before performing the write-offs.

"Actually, in terms of cash balance, Tekun is in an excellent financial position and this is mentioned in the Auditor-General Report (2016) that Tekun cash flows are satisfactory.

"It means that our financial condition is adequate," he told Bernama here today.

She was commenting on the Auditor-General's Report 2016 series one tabled in Parliament on Monday that Tekun Nasional recorded RM209.28 million accumulated losses by the end of 2015.

Nor Azita said despite performing the write-offs, Tekun was pursuing the debtors aggressively through litigation since 2015, and collected RM74.6 million or 18.2 percent of the bad debts as at June 2016, thus reducing the write-off debts.

"Tekun's position in terms of portfolio assets is strong, boasting a cash reserve of RM523 million, indicating its cash flows were well managed and recorded RM20.37 million profit last year," she said.

Nor Azita said based on the financial performance, Tekun was able to repay its loans to the government according to schedule.

"Tekun is said to suffer losses in 2015. In fact, we had received a fund of RM250 million from the government, disbursed RM582 million in loans and collected RM352 million.

"With the RM250 million given by the government, we had provided financing worth RM582 million, so it's somewhat implausible to say that Tekun has made a loss," he said.

Nor Azita said from 1999 until July this year, Tekun channelled financing to 392,713 entrepreneurs with the number of loans totaling 512,486 amounting to RM4.8 billion.

"To date, Tekun received RM2.9 billion in funding. It means Tekun has channelled more than 1.7 times more than the funding received.

"The surplus of this fund is from the repayment of loans channelled to borrowers. Since it started operations, Tekun has recovered financing worth RM3.3 billion," he said.

Nor Azita said in order to ensure that the financing and repayment process reached a high-quality level, Tekun Nasional has implemented several new initiatives.

These include introducing a credit scoring system and review with credit information bureau RAM Credit Information Sdn Bhd (RAMCI), strengthening its credit call centre and increasing payment channels, she added.

- Bernama