By Staff Reporter
Kenyans will not pay application fees to get the Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) clearance certificate as it has been the norm before.
In a statement, the board’s Chief Executive Officer Mr. Charles Ringera, said they will not charge any fee to non-beneficiaries of student loans who used to pay Sh.1000 for the cost of processing the certificate and other administrative expenses.
“It has repeatedly come to our attention that the charges for non-loanee compliance certificate are perceived to be punitive, especially to the many unemployed youth who did not benefit from the student loans,” stated Ringera.
The move is geared towards improving service delivery and also to help many unemployed youths who are not beneficiaries of the student loan.
“HELB has stopped charging Sh1,000 and the HELB can accessed from the HELB website (www.helb.co.ke) as well as the E-Citizen Portal,” he said.
Other factors that forced the changes include the slow economic growth and increased cost of living, and retrenchment and downsizing that are affecting nearly all sectors due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to Chapter six of the Kenyan constitution on Leadership and Integrity, all person applying for public employment opportunities are required to present specific compliance certificates.
The HELB Compliance Certificate was among the required documents, which helps institutions to assess the applicants credit worthiness and integrity.
Apart from HELB, job seekers are also required to get compliance certificates from the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
Others are a certificate of good conduct from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, and a letter from Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) indicating the applicant doesn’t owe any financial institution money.
