Five states, FCT yet to access Paris club counterpart fund ― UBEC

Dr Hamid Bobboyi, the Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), says Anambra, Edo, Ekiti, Nasarawa, Kano and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are yet to access the Paris Club counterparts fund in full.

Bobboyi made this known when he issued a comprehensive list of states that have so far accessed the Paris Club counterpart fund disbursement to states made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.

He said that Abia, Akwa-Ibom, Jigawa, Imo, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Delta, Yobe, Kebbi, Kogi, Ebonyi, Niger, Lagos, Ogun and Plateau have accessed their funds in full as at July 9, 2019.

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Other states that had accessed were: Bayelsa, Bauchi, Enugu, Kaduna, Katsina, Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Gombe Sokoto, and Zamfara states.

He said that those that were yet to access the fund should come up and follow the required guidelines to be able to access it.

He added that for a state to access the current fund, such state must have paid 75 per cent of the previous year’s fund to be qualified in accessing the current fund.

However, from the document given to NAN, Abia was able to pay N2,330,682,113.57 as matching grant to be able to access the Paris Club fund while Akwa-Ibom paid N2,703,556550.86 to access its fund.

Also, Bauchi was able to pay N2,268, 903,280.76, Bayelsa N4,187,682,198.84, Borno N1,473,832,843.82 and Lagos N1,473,832,845.30, among others.

NAN reports that the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mr Sonny Echono at a one-day meeting to strengthen partnership within the three tiers of government on the Sustainable Development Goals 4 (SDGs-4) urged FCT and other states that were yet to access the funds to do so for the development of the educational sector.

Echono said the Federal Government had addressed the challenges of accessing the Universal Basic Education Fund using the Paris Club loan refund.

He, therefore, commended states that had accessed the fund while encouraging the remaining states to do the needful by submitting the relevant plans.