PETALING JAYA: PTPTN chairman Wan Saiful Wan Jan has told Datuk Seri Najib Razak to stop "lying to the people" as it was PAS that promised to abolish the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) debts, not Pakatan Harapan.

"There is nothing in our (Pakatan's) plans to abolish the PTPTN debts as Najib accused," Wan Saiful said in a statement Thursday (Sept 13).

"That is the promise by PAS, who now sleeps in the same bed (tidur sekatil) as Umno."

In a Facebook post on Monday (Sept 10), the former prime minister claimed that Pakatan "will not abolish the PTPTN repayment as promised".

Najib was responding to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahahthir Mohamad's jab at the Malay community for being untrustworthy and not repaying their PTPTN debts that had grown to RM39bil in outstanding repayments.

Najib said the PTPTN repayment rate was poor as people, regardless of race, had avoided repaying the loan due to Pakatan's promise to abolish their debts if they win in the general election.

However, Wan Saiful pointed out that 70% of Malay recipients are "not disciplined and did not fulfil their obligation to repay their loans."

He said since PTPTN was established, as many as 1,003,124 of its recipients were Malays.

However, only 28.2% of them (288,835 recipients) consistently serviced their loans. The remaining 42% (425,292) do not repay according to schedule, while 28% (277,994) defaulted on their loans.

"Based on these facts, Dr Mahathir is accurate in saying that anak Melayu (Malay children) who grew up in the Najib era have increasingly adopted a 'Jika kita hutang, berat bagi kita membayar balik' attitude (if we owe money, it's difficult to pay back)," added Wan Saiful, who is also a Pribumi Supreme Council member.

"The 'cash is king' attitude brought by Najib has damaged the Malays."

Dr Mahathir is now leading efforts to fix this damage, so that the Malays can return their true pride in their race and their ability to work for success.

For the general election on May 9, Pakatan promised to abolish the policy of blacklisting PTPTN defaulters, but not the repayment itself.

In its manifesto, Pakatan pledged to postpone the repayment of PTPTN loans for graduates whose salaries were below RM4,000 a month.

Implicit in this is the understanding that they will repay their student loans once their salaries are at RM4,000 and above.