KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 20 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders today demanded a stop to Putrajaya’s plan to list PTPTN defaulters on Bank Negara’s Credit Bureau database, and even threatened a nationwide campaign to protest the move if it is not shelved.

PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli (picture), who mooted the campaign in a statement here, said his party will not stop its protest until the government agrees to back down from what he described as a “rough” tactic to recover loans.

“I am warning Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh to discontinue this intention to threaten and punish our PTPTN youth borrowers by listing them on the CCRIS,” he said, using the initials for the Central Credit Reference Information System.

Joining his PR colleague in disagreeing with the move, the DAP’s Steven Sim Chee Keong said listing defaulters on the CCRIS would likely hamper their future plans to take out loans for important matters like house or car purchases.

“Therefore, this act of the federal government is akin to punishing the youths that in the first place had no choice but to be debtors,” he added.

Idris, who is Education Minister II, was reported as saying yesterday that beginning this month, the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) has been collaborating with Bank Negara to list defaulters on the CCRIS.

The CCRIS is where information on borrowers to the Credit Bureau is stored. Credit data from financial institutions is automatically kept and processed in the CCRIS and subsequently synthesised into credit reports, which will in turn be made available to institutions upon request.

An individual with a bad credit report would automatically face trouble when applying for future loans with these institutions.

Idris explained that the move to list PTPTN defaulters on the CCRIS was to recover monies from scholars who were “adamant” not to repay the fund.

But he said those who are unable to pay could still discuss alternative payment plans with PTPTN in order to exclude their names from the CCRIS.

He added that those unable to repay their loan could discuss their payment plan with PTPTN to come up with a new repayment schedule.

But Rafizi, one of the brains behind PR’s famous free education pre-polls promise, said this move would not work.

“Before this, PTPTN decided to place defaulters on an immigration blacklist to block them from leaving the country.

“This threat did not even help improve the fund’s financial position in terms of loan collection... so I am confident that listing defaulters on the CCRIS would not be effective as well,” he said.

Sim said he will seek Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s aid to put a halt to the CCRIS listing plan, adding that the government was acting hastily by punishing the students first without addressing the root cause of the problem.

The root cause, said the Bukit Mertajam MP, is oftentimes the low income of many households and a tertiary education industry that allegedly values profits over quality.

“In this situation, youths have no choice and are forced to be debtors at a young age through PTPTN loans to pay for their higher education in a gloomy household finance situation,” Sim said.

He frowned on the move as a simplistic and hasty measure to address the PTPTN loan default problem without giving thought to the hardship of the people, saying that the government appeared to be acting like an “Ah Long” (loan shark) by pressuring graduates to repay.

According to The Star’s report today, last month’s reported figure of those who had not started PTPTN loan repayments stood at 418,094 graduates, with outstanding debts of RM2.8 billion.