The National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) will carry out compulsory salary deduction to recover loans from defaulters from June next year.

Its chairman, Ismail Mohamed Said, said that effective June next year, all PTPTN borrowers, especially the more than 46,000 defaulters, would be required to make their loan repayments through salary deduction to the Inland Revenue Board (IRB).

He said its implementation would involve amendments to the National Higher Education Fund Act 1997, adding that a proposal to amend the law would be tabled in Parliament next year.

"We will discuss the proposed amendments to the PTPTN Act at the end of the month with the IRB and the proposal will be tabled in Parliament in March next year," he told reporters at a Aidifiltri gathering in Temerloh today.

He said the corporation would also wait for the government's decision on the minimum salary requirement for the compulsory salary deduction on PTPTN borrowers.

Such a move had to be taken so as not to deprive others the opportunity to obtain PTPTN loans to further their studies, he added.

He said about 46,000 of the 1.6 million people who had obtained PTPTN loans had yet to make their repayments despite the facilities made available for them, like through salary deductions, at bank counters and through on-line payments.

Ismail said that since 1997 until July this year, PTPTN had given out loans totalling RM23 billion.

"As of last July, we should have collected RM3.6 billion in loan repayment, but the collection was only RM1.8 billion," he added.

He said only 42 per cent or 600,000 of the 1.6 million PTPTN borrowers had repaid their loans so far.

- Bernama