How Anambra, Ogun, Imo, Edo, Ebonyi abandoned over N10bn UBE fund with UBEC

DESPITE the decay, shortage and dilapidation of infrastructure as witnessed in most public schools across the country, Nigerian Tribune checks have revealed that state governments have abandoned over N29 billion with Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

The affected states were said to have refused to pay the requisite 50 per cent counterpart fund in order to access the fund.

Leading the pack of states with the high un-accessed funds are Anambra, Ogun, Imo, Edo, and Ebonyi, with each having over N2 billion lying fallow at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

A document obtained from the headquarters of UBEC on Tuesday, detailing the un-accessed matching grant from 2005 to 2020 as of 17th August 2021, indicated the five states have refused to pay the requisite counterpart fund to access the over 10 billion cumulatively disbursed to them for the implementation of Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme in their states.

The document, however, contradicted a statement credited to the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, a few days ago that over 130 billion has not been accessed from UBEC by the state governments.

Adamu who was quoted to have spoken through the Minister of State for Education, Hon. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, described as unfortunate, the inability of some states of the federation to access over N130 billion made available by UBEC for development primary education in their States.

He spoke at the 2021 and 65th National Council on Education meeting in Jalingo, Taraba State, saying over N130,000,000,000 in UBEC custody is still unutilized as a result of the inability of states to provide their 50 precent counterpart funds.

He urged the affected states to reprioritize basic education as it is the bedrock for further and continuing education, too strategic to be ignored.

It could not be established immediately if the minister included the 2021 allocation in the figure he announced, which Nigerian Tribune gathered statutorily could not be accessed until January next year in line with the laws establishing the Commission.

The document obtained from UBEC further revealed that other states with high amount of un-accessed fund include Niger with N1.7 billion and Enugu, that has N1.56 billion respectively.

Other states have over N7 million each apart from Bayelsa, Delta, Jigawa, Kaduna, Rivers, Kebbi and Zamfara, which have fully accessed their matching grants.

The document also showed that over N500 billion has been disbursed as a matching grant to states from 2005 to 2020.

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