KUALA LUMPUR, July 18 — The National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) has admitted it does not know how many of its debtors earn less than RM4,000 monthly.

Its chairman Wan Saiful Wan Jan said PTPTN is still trying to figure out the exact number of debtors earning less than RM4,000.

“It was a problem when Pakatan Harapan was in the Opposition. Even when I asked the corporation (after becoming chairman) I found out that they do not know as well,” he said during a forum on PH’s election manifesto at University Malaya.

The fifth promise of the manifesto’s first pillar, aimed at reducing the people’s burden, stipulates that debtors will only be required to pay back their PTPTN loans once they earn RM4,000 and above.

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However, Wan Saiful said this did not mean the new administration will not fulfill its promise.

“It simply made us realise how much of a challenge stands before us, which requires a greater amount of work,” he said.

Wan Saiful said that since taking over, the new administration has been able to access information and data it previously was unable to when it was in the Opposition.

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“Now we can make suitable adjustments accordingly. Not just to the promise on PTPTN, but to the rest of the first pillar since we now have the data at hand,” he said.

Throughout the forum Wan Saiful described the challenges he faced when drafting the manifesto, including balancing idealistic and realistic promises, the inability to access proper data, and insufficient time to go to many places and explain what the manifesto entails.