THE House of Representatives, on Tuesday, mandated the Committee on Basic Education and Services to conduct investigation into the trend of American international school in Abuja and other international schools in the Federal Capital Territory, for charging school fees in dollars.
The resolution of the House followed a motion by Honourable Emmanuel Agboola and 14 others on the “need to investigate the exploitation of parents by the America International School, Abuja and some other international schools.”
While moving the motion, he said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had, on April 17, 2015 issued a circular No. BSD/D1/GEN/LAB/08/03 entitled: “Currency Substitution and Dollarisation of the Nigerian Economy” to reform the currency regulations, stressing that in pursuant to sections 15, 20(1) and (5) of the CBN Act, it is illegal to price or denominate the cost of any product or service in any foreign currency in Nigeria other than the naira.
The lawmaker, however, noted that America International School, Abuja and some other international schools in Nigeria were collecting fees in foreign currencies contrary to CBN’s policy.
The international schools, he added, disregarded the extant financial regulations even when it was inclined to collect the fees in naira and could accept the naira only on the parallel market rate and on the prevailing rate for the day.
Speaking further, he said the schools sometimes resorted to the use of parallel market rate to determine the amount of fees to be collected in naira, which entailed that parents paid school fees at different rates.
This development, he said, “depends on the rate in the black market and as such, parents of children in the same class end up paying different fees for their children, depending on the day the payment was made.”