FINDING an agency to manage the “House Revolving Fund” for teachers and ensuring the repayment of loans continues to hamper the implementation of the facility.

The fund allows for teachers who are members of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) to access interest-free loans for housing and was agreed to by the Government of Guyana and the
Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) in 2006.

In 2017, there was a proposal for the Ministry of Finance’s Student Loans Agency to manage the fund which currently stands at $200 million but there has been no forward movement on those plans. The GTU has once again brought up the matter during a meeting with the Ministry of Education (MoE) on Friday.

“The major thing is the technicalities. How do we work out the modalities? Who would administer the fund? We need an agency with the capacity to administer it for us because the GTU doesn’t have the capacity. I don’t know which Government agency would be able to do it for us but the money is there and we need to get it going,” GTU President, Mark Lyte, said to the Guyana Chronicle on Friday.

In 2011, the Housing Revolving Fund was established by virtue of the 2006 – 2010 multi-year agreement between the Government of Guyana, through the Ministry of Education (MoE), and the GTU, where $30 million annually were to be deposited into the fund by the government, and the money put aside for the sole intent of being used to offer loans to the teachers to build their homes.

Since then three cheques with a total valued of $200M were deposited into a special account held at the Bank of Guyana. The fund continued under the GTU/MOE 2011 – 2015 multi-year agreement where more money was expected to have been deposited into the fund.

The Audit Office, in its 2015 report, recommended that the Ministry of Education continues engagement with the Finance Secretary so that progress can be made on the issue.

Lyte explained that there were even considerations of having one of the commercial banks administer the loans, but, with the loans being interest free, that proved to have some issues.

“We wouldn’t want our teachers paying interest on our money, so it’s difficult to get a commercial bank to implement it for us. But having the money revolve will be a big thing, because we have to ensure that the teachers pay so that the other teachers can benefit,” Lyte related.

Over the years, the Ministry of Finance Student Loan Agency has had its share of difficulties in recovering loans from students after they would have completed their studies.