ZHELB BOARD OF DIRECTORS VISITS HESLB

The BoD Chairpersons plan for more collaboration

The Board of Directors of the Zanzibar Higher Education Loans Board (ZHELB) led by its Chairman Prof. Mohammed Hafidh Khalfan today paid a visit at the Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB) offices in Dar es Salaam to meet with HESLB Board of Directors and share experiences with the aim of increasing productivity and efficiency in performance.

ZHELB Board Members were received by HESLB Board Chairman Prof. Hamisi Dihenga and his Vice Chairperson Dr. Rukkaya Muhammed and thereon received a presentation from HESLB Executive Director Abdul-Razaq Badru.

During the presentation, HESLB Executive Director explained to the Members of the Board about the achievements following improved use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in HESLB operational systems starting from loan application, allocation, disbursement, repayment and recovery.

Prior to the presentation, the ZHELB Chairman Prof. Khalfan said that HESLB is doing a good job of providing loans to a large number of qualified students from Zanzibar and thus significantly reducing the pressure on ZHELB.

“Our missions are the same since the institutions we lead have similar goals… our guarantee and trust is to find ways to enable students study comfortably”, emphasized Prof. Khalfan and added that such meetings be put on the institutions’ calendars once or twice a year.

Meanwhile, the HESLB Board Chairman Prof. Dihenga has urged the HESLB and ZHELB managements to confirm whether the Laws allow the two Board of Directors to work together so that there could be a mechanism to meet once a year to solve common challenges.

“If the Laws allow these two Boards to work together, let the two Boards meet once a year to solve common challenges”, said Prof. Dihenga.

HESLB and ZHELB entered into formal agreement by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in April, 2021 with the aim of exchanging student information and data so that the two institutions can work more efficiently; and there has been an arrangement of officers to meet every quarter for operational issues, especially on loan issuance.