PARLIAMENT | Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching today said the drop in PTPTN repayments this year was partly caused by former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak's extension of the grace period to repay the loans.

The grace period had been extended from six months to 12 months by the previous administration.

Teo said as such, the drop was not just due to the removal of the names of PTPTN defaulters from the immigration blacklist as claimed by Khairy Jamaluddin (BN-Rembau).

"I do not deny that the collection reduced after the removal of names from the immigration blacklist but the drop in repayments is not just due to this.

"In 2017, when tabling the Budget 2018, an announcement was made by Najib to extend the grace period for PTPTN applicants repay their loans," she said in the Dewan Rakyat today in response to a question from Khairy.

Khairy had asked how much PTPTN repayments were collected after the names of defaulters were removed from the immigration blacklist.

Teo said they collected RM817.65 million between June and September compared to RM1.324 billion collected last year during the same period.

"Thank you for confirming that after they were removed from the blacklist, PTPTN repayments have gone down by about RM500 million.

"That is why we put them in the blacklist," Khairy said.

Not yet enforced

However, Teo pointed out that the decrease in PTPTN repayments had started since January this year.

For example, she said, PTPTN collection was RM351 million in January 2017 but dropped to RM297 million in January this year.

The PTPTN loan repayments collection in March last year was RM384 million but decreased to RM293 million in March this year, she pointed out.

"We cannot blame Pakatan Harapan and the act of removing people from the blacklist as the reason for the reduction in payments.

"If you want to put it that way, then the extension of the grace period is also wrong," she said.

Harapan had promised in its election manifesto to postpone PTPTN loan repayments for those earning below RM4,000 a month.

However, this policy has yet to be enforced as the government continues to work out a mechanism for its implementation.