Gerakan Youth is proposing to the government to also use the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) besides the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) to help collect repayments from loan borrowers from the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN).

Gerakan Youth deputy chief Oh Tong Keong said the EPF has a good network as well as a record of every employee in the country, including the borrowers.

“It will be much easier to trace the borrowers in the EPF which is computer-linked,” he said in a statement.

Oh pointed out that the IRB’s network was limited as only those employees earning RM2,550 and above per month need to be registered with the IRB and pay income tax.

Oh, who is also Penang Gerakan Youth chief, said borrowers could be asked to pay their loans monthly through EPF on a separate account for PTPTN.

In this way, he said, a borrower would not feel the “pinch” so much as his income is being deducted by installments each month.

Oh said it is only fair and ethical that borrowers repay their loans to the government so that the “rolling money” could be used for others to further their education. Yesterday, IRB director-general Tan Sri Hasmah Abdullah said the IRB was expected to implement the automatic salary deduction on PTPTN loan borrowers from Jan 1, 2012.

She said the board was drafting the law, system and operation with PTPTN to enable it to recover the loans more effectively.

Meanwhile on a separate note, Oh questioned PTPTN whether any action had been taken over the Auditor-General 2009 Report which highlighted that PTPTN had approved loans totaling RM23.78mil to 16,013 students who did not apply for the facility.

The AG Report also said that even though 227,595 loan agreements were received in 2008 and 2009, a whopping 82% of them have yet to be signed by PTPTN, making it difficult to act against the 187,540 who refused to repay their loans.

Oh said legal action should also be taken, if there was sufficient evidence pinpointing corruption, abuse of power or malpractices by those involved.