MORE and more needy tertiary students are being given access to grants, officials of the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB) have insisted amidst increased scrutiny over the agency’s spending.

“The SLB is doing what it can to ensure that more and more persons get grants,” Bureau chairman Worrick Bogle told the Public Accounts and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of Parliament Friday.

Students wait outside the New Kingston offices of the Students’ Loan Bureau to access loans for tertiary education.

According to Bogle, the number of persons getting grants has been increasing steadily, moving from 916 in 2009/10 to 2,392 in 2010/11, with 3,393 already disbursed for 2011/12, a figure which stands to increase further by the end of the year.

The bureau, led by executive director Monica Brown, appeared before the committee to explain why some $80 million in grant funds were not disbursed to students for this financial year, but instead got ranked as savings.

According to information contained in the Second Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure which was brought to Parliament by the People’s National Party administration two weeks ago, the SLB had realised “savings” of $80 million from the $150 million that had been made available for student grants.

The discovery was enough to prompt the PAAC to summon the bureau for an explanation.

Friday, Brown said the bureau was at the mercy of the Ministry of Finance regarding provision of grant funding, which, though approved in the budget, was not always disbursed.

“We do not have $80 million sitting on which has not been disbursed, we don’t. It’s misleading to give the impression that the SLB is sitting on $80 million and students are there suffering,” she said.

To illustrate, she said in August 2011, the SLB only received $63 million of the $150 million approved in the budget to fund grants to eligible tertiary students for the 2011 academic year.

The bureau received $125 million through the budget for grant disbursements in 2009 but said for the three year period 2006 to 2008, the agency disbursed grants totalling $198 million with $88 million in 2006, $65 million in 2007 and $45 million in 2008. This was despite the failure of Government to provide the requisite funds.

“Our records reveal that these disbursements were actually made from the revolving loan pool as no funds were received from the Government of Jamaica for provision for grants to needy students for at least the three-year period,” Brown told committee members.

“Basically the funds in the grant pool were carried forward each year and used to make grants, but based on the policy that obtained at the time, you were restricted in terms of the extent to which grants were given. Now, having changed the policy, there was a significant expansion in terms of the numbers of students who benefited from grants and we expect that this will continue,” she told the committee.

The SLB executive director said based on the evaluation of applications done in 2009, the SLB accessed $39 million in grants which was disbursed for that year. She said a request was made in May 2010 for approval to transfer the surplus to the revolving loan fund, given the projected shortfall in funds at the time, but said there was no record that the approval was given.

“As such, the surplus remains in the pool of grants,” Brown told the meeting.

But opposition committee member of parliament for South West St Catherine Everald Warmington was at odds with the rationale.

“It said you received $63 million up to August last year… approved $148.2 million in grants, and project to disburse $114 million and yet there is savings of $80 million, even though $150 million was projected in the budget. Then if $114 million was disbursed this year, how come the supplementary budget is showing only $70 million was disbursed? It means what was passed in the House as the second supplementary was totally incorrect, and I don’t expect the minister to lay an incorrect Supplementary Estimates,” Warmington declared.

According to Lorris Jarrett, senior director in the finance ministry, the allocation in the budget represents financing to the SLB.

“For this year we made an allocation of $150 million to the bureau to finance grant-in-aid disbursements. Of that sum $70 million was disbursed to the SLB. They would have used that $70 million along with balances remaining from prior years which were not disbursed to come up with the total that they would disburse to students,” he said.

“So $70 million was disbursed, but $80 million was not disbursed, not really savings because it was never disbursed; it’s not the fault of the bureau,” PAAC chair Edmund Bartlett summarised.

“The concern we have is that funds were not given to the needy students. I’m not satisfied. The question is why do we have these type of funds sitting in the SLB year after year and they are not being disbursed to needy students?” Warmington pressed.

In the meantime, Brown told the committee that the means test by which students are selected for loan and grant assistance is being reviewed.

“We are in dialogue with the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) who is assisting us. We are also in dialogue with representatives of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security,” she said.

The SLB executive director said there are still some students who qualify for loans and were in need of grant assistance, but did not pass the means test, hence the move to revamp.

She noted that although there were savings, the funds were still limited and so not every applicant will be given a grant although persons who were beneficiaries of the Programme for Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) would automatically qualify.

The SLB chairman, who was taken to task for his suggestion that the committee “analyse” the figures in order to understand the “excess” grant funds held by the bureau over the years, said the criteria will be reviewed with a view to amending the policy to accommodate persons who were in need of the grant funding and not necessarily the loans.

“Hopefully we will be able to do something about this in the not-too-distant future,” he told the committee.

The bureau said for the current 2011/12 academic year it has so far approved $148.82 million in grants — including cancellations of approximately $18.8 million (in the cases of students who received scholarships and no longer needed loans).

Under the SLB system, students of major universities are allotted $50,000 each per semester and $25,000 each per semester for other tertiary institutions, disbursed in two tranches.