The Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, has debunked claims of large-scale looting at the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
He said the recent controversies stemmed from delayed reporting by universities rather than corruption.
Addressing concerns raised by a retracted Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) report, which alleged that N70 billion of NELFUND’s N100 billion was misappropriated, the minister described the claims as “sensationalised”.
“There’s been a lot of sensationalisation in the news on NELFUND in the last few days. The ICPC report saying almost N70 billion was not used to service children’s education was retracted. It wasn’t true,” Alausa said.
The minister explained that the issue arose from universities failing to promptly notify students about fee payments made by NELFUND.
“What happened is that fees, sometimes going into hundreds of millions of naira, get paid to the universities, but they don’t notify the students. The students are anxious, thinking their fees haven’t been paid,” he said.
Alausa outlined government’s plans to address the issue, saying: “We’ve quickly set up guidelines, which we will be discussing with the universities today. We will give timelines on when universities get NELFUND fees and the duration they need to inform students.”
The minister assured Nigerians that NELFUND remained a “legacy intervention” for the benefit of over 500,000 students and reaffirmed the ministry’s zero-tolerance for fraud.
He added: “It wasn’t a case that N100 billion got released to NELFUND and N70 billion was looted. Absolutely not! The process we have now has no mechanism for that to ever happen.”
Also, Alausa has explained why the Federal Government suspended scholarships under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA).
The minister said the move was meant to address inefficiencies and redirect public funds to strengthen the nation’s education system.
The suspension, aimed at ensuring prudent use of resources, followed a review that exposed the sponsorship of students for courses readily available in Nigeria at exorbitant costs.
Alausa highlighted the financial burden of the BEA, citing an instance where N640 million was budgeted for just 16 students to study in Morocco.
“Why would we spend N640 million just for travel expenses and other things to send 16 students to Morocco to study something that we have in the country?” he queried.
The minister said a N9 billion budget for BEA scholarships was being used to fund courses, like English, in French-speaking countries.
“I was shocked to find that students are being sent on scholarship to go to Algeria, a French-speaking country, to study English. Courses like Psychology, Sociology, and Mathematics. They are all available here with even higher quality,” he said.