LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-Sad news reaching this publication indicates that renowned rights activist and former Higher Education Students’ Grants and Loans Board Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Chris Chisoni died on Friday morning, September 24, 2021.
The deceased’s younger brother Felix has confirmed the death of Chisoni.
Felix said the real cause of Chisoni’s death is not yet established.
“Our brother just complained of not feeling well this morning, still he was able to drop his kids to school. It was on his return that the situation worsened and was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead upon arrival,” said Felix.
Chris Chisoni came into the limelight when he was National Coordinator for Malawi Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP).
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Christopher Chisoni has been removed from his position as Chief Executive Officer for Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB) with immediate effect, Maravi Post has learnt.
According to a statement in our possession from HESLB board of directors, Chisoni has been removed based on the findings on an investigation that revealed that procedures were not followed when renewing his contract.
“The Board of Directors of the Higher Education Students’ Loans and Grants Board (HESLGB) would like to inform all stakeholders in Education, especially the Higher Education sub-sector, and members of the general public that Mr. Christopher Chisoni has been removed as Executive Director of HESLGB, with immediate effect.
“The decision of the Board is based on an investigation that commenced in late January 2021 after the Board observed that Mr. Chisoni’s second contract as Executive Director had commenced on 14th November 2021, about one and half months after the appointment of the current Board, yet the Board had not renewed the contract as required by the HESLGB Act. The Board then resolved to investigate and ascertain the validity of the contract,” reads the statement in part.
It further states that on the 13th July 2021, the Board resolved to terminate the contract of Chisoni on the ground that the renewal of his contract was irregular.
Chisoni was also arrested last year in August for allegedly abusing his powers as CEO for HESLGB by awarding an K18 million contract to his wife’s firm EE and A Enterprises of Lilongwe for printing diaries and supply stationary to the board.
Before joining the board, Chisoni was a vocal critic of the government when he was the coordinator of Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP).
Some of the graduates who benefited the government student loans
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The country’s Higher Education Students Loans and Grants Boards (HESLB), has imposed a 25 percent penalty on university loan defaulters starting from April 1, 2017.
The penalty imposition comes at the expiry of a year-long grace period to repay the loan by March 31, 2017 from April 2016.
Currently, former University of Malawi students owe the board about MK3.8 billion that only MK68 million has been collected since the time the exercise started.
HESLB Chief Executive Officer Chris Chisoni, told reporters in Lilongwe that the grace period the board put was coming to an end and hence the decision to penalize loan defaulters.
Chisoni said although there is high loan repayment, nonetheless, the law requires that at the expiry of the grace period, the loans be paid back with an interest.
He added that the 25% will date back to the year of graduation, and was to be calculated using a compound interest method.
“The board, therefore, resolved that 25% of the base lending interest rate in the year of the graduation and compound interest method would be the most applicable method of calculating the loan balance to be paid by the loan beneficiaries.
“The 12-month grace period was deliberately put in place so that the board would raise awareness of its existence, the beginning of the recoveries campaign, the legal provisions regulating its operations were put in place. Therefore after the expiry of the grace period, the board will refer some of the defaulters to credit data bureaus,” Chisoni said.
The Loan Board Act Section 27 (3) (a & b) empowers HESLB to calculate a reasonable interest on all former students’ loans as per original agreement forms signed between a student and all preceding student loans scheme administrations.
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The country’s Higher Education Students’ Loans and Grants Board recovered a measly MK35 million in the nine months of the exercise of the MK1.7 billion which it targets to collect within the 12 months running up to March 2017.
Chris Chisoni: The MK1.7 billion target unrealistic
The Board’s Executive Director Chris Chisoni told The Daily Times that his office will not be able to recover the MK1.7 billion loans within the remaining three months from former universities students.
Chisoni disclosed that over 23,000 beneficiaries from 120 employers have been traced and approached for the recovery of the loan.He said that about 60 of the employers approached have complied with the board’s exercise of recovering the loans.
“I doubt that we will recover all the money we wanted. Currently, the process of consulting employers to identify the students who went to public universities is ongoing. So far, the board has managed to recover MK35 million within nine months just three months ahead of the March 2017 target that we collect the M1.7 billion,” said Chisoni.
“The board has been engaging employers to provide names of their employees who accessed the loans while learning at the country’s public higher learning institutions. The recovered money is meant to support other needy students in the wake of high tuition fees”, he added.
Chisoni then warned that legal action will take its course on those beneficiaries who fail to comply with the board’s order arguing that the law was clear on loan defaulters.
In 2012, the late President Bingu Wa Mutharika launched the loan recovery campaign from former public university students as a revolving fund that needy students can access as a loan for their tertiary education.
The loan recovery exercise has been meeting problems in tracing former beneficiaries who might have traveled outside the country and those in the informal sector.
It does not get sweeter than this when the Presidents orders additional allocation of resources to the needy and deserving students.
The allocated amount will be outside K1.5Billion which the Parliament allocated to the Students Loan and Grants board.
Speaking during the press conference, the grants board chairperson Geoffrey Chipungu urged the former students to repay their outstanding loans so that more needy can be able to access the facility.
In his statement on the status of loan repayment, the Student load Executive Director, Chris Chisoni said currently a lot of former students are repaying the loans.
“Let me appeal to the general public to continue repaying the loans so that these needy students can benefit,” Said Chisoni.
Chisoni said currently, CSOs and students have raised concerns on the numbers of students dropping out either due to their partial financing of fees by the loans granted in 2015 to 2016 by the loans board.
“The Loans Board is pleased that Government has come to the rescue of the situation which was dire and that indeed the Loans Board has been capacitated to facilitate the increased support to needy and deserving students.” Said Chisoni.
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