NATIONAL Federation Party leader and Government MP Professor Biman Prasad has defended the Coalition Government’s decision to write off $650million in Tertiary Scholarships and Loans Service (TSLS) debt, saying it relieved thousands of families while replacing an ineffective repayment system with merit-based scholarships.
Speaking during the 2026-2027 National Budget debate in Parliament yesterday, Prof Prasad responded to criticism from Opposition MP Premila Kumar over the debt write-off.
“In the last three years, we’ve done a number of things, and I want to repeat some of those key ones,” he said.
“Honourable Kumar talked about how we wrote off $650million TSLS debt. That helped 53,000 families, who were burdened with an average debt of about $12,000.”
Prof Prasad rejected claims that the Government had forfeited a valuable public asset, arguing that debt recovery under the previous administration had been minimal.
“She was saying, ‘No, we’ve lost that $650million. You know what, this is during your time, and out of that $650million debt, on average only about $7 to $8million was collected annually.”
He said at that rate, it would have taken decades to recover the outstanding amount.
“If you divide that $650million by an average of $8million annually, you would need 80 years to collect all that $650million.”
Prof Prasad said the Government had instead redirected its focus to investing in education and workforce development.
“So we wrote that off, and we replaced that with a merit-based scholarship, put a bond.
“That was a direct expenditure of close to about $150 to $180million in improving human capital, which is an essential ingredient.”
