The Malaysian Insight

THE law must be amended to allow the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) to make salary deductions from borrowers, Human Resources Minister M. Kula Segaran said.

He said Malaysian Trades Union Congress president Abdul Halim Mansor was right to say that PTPTN could not make the deductions without the consent of borrowers or their employers.

Halim had said yesterday that under the Employment Act 1955, no deductions could be made from workers’ salaries without their consent.

“Halim is right. Under the law, you cannot make the deduction, unless you have a new law that authorises it.

“You need to amend the PTPTN Act to say that any outstanding loan can be paid via salary deductions at source,” he said at an employment law forum in Penang today.

Kula Segaran, who was a lawyer, declined to comment further as PTPTN was not under his ministry’s purview.

However, he said that youth who had taken PTPTN loans for their education should understand that they had a duty to pay it back.

“The amount is not much; just under RM100. Due to the government’s financial constraints, we have to ask for the loans to be paid back,” he said.

In its election manifesto, Pakatan Harapan had promised borrowers they could hold off paying their loans until they made RM4,000 salaries.

But after winning Putrajaya and inheriting a RM1 trillion national debt, the government told borrowers to repay their PTPTN loans.

PTPTN chairman Wan Saiful Wan Jan had recently announced that borrowers earning more than RM2,000 a month would have their salaries deducted to pay their loans.

He said a tiered wage garnishment scheme would begin next month at 2% for those earning RM2,001 to RM2,499. This will go up to 15% for those making RM8,000 and above a month. – December 6, 2018.