UBEC: Unaccessed Funds Hit N60bn with CBN

• Five states fingered in illegal withdrawal of counterpart funding

• We have minimised infractions, says commission’s boss

Senator Iroegbu in Abuja

The Executive Secretary of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Dr. Hamid Bobboyi, has disclosed that many state governments have failed to access the federal government matching grant to them now to the tune of about N60 billion as at March 31, 2017.

Bobboyi disclosed this on Monday while speaking at a meeting with the leadership of Education Correspondents Association of Nigeria (ECAN) in Abuja.
He said the inability of many states to access the intervention fund has greatly hampered the development of basic education in the country.

He noted that the matching grant, which is an intervention fund disbursed by the federal government to states through the UBEC, is meant to support the development of basic education and implementation of the UBEC scheme.

According to the statistics obtained from the commission on the un-accessed matching grant from 2005 to 2016 as at March 31, 2017, it was indicated that only two states have so far have accessed the 2016 grant. The states are Borno and Rivers State.

Ebonyi State is the least performed state in terms of access and utilisation of the fund as it currently has up to N4 billion un-accessed fund with UBEC.

Other states that followed Ebonyi closely are: Enugu and Ondo with over N3 billion each un-accessed, while Bayelsa, Niger, Ogun, and Oyo, each has N2.8 billion un-accessed fund lying idle with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The Executive Secretary of UBEC also lamented that apart from the refusal to access the intervention fund, some state governors have been involved in diversion of the allocation to their states.

He particularly revealed that five states were involved in illegal withdrawal of the counterpart fund after the federal government would have released the matching grant to them on payment of the requisite counterpart fund.
Besides, he said the commission had noticed and closed down the accounts of some states where the intervention fund were placed on fixed deposit in banks.

The UBEC boss disclosed further that there were plethora of cases where the outgoing governors of some states allegedly moved the money from the account of the States Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) to the state’s main account against the law, thereby creating confusion in the system.

This, he said, had created a lot of problems for the incoming governors and in some cases UBEC had to ask for the return of the money before such a state could access fresh allocation.
He said: “On the issue of matching grant to states, if we provide N1 billion to a state, the state is expected to bring its own N1 billion and this expands the resource base available to the basic education sector.

“This is the reason why I feel very worried that after the federal government pays its own matching grant, the state would withdraw its own counterpart fund.
“This is not only against the law but it negates the entire arrangement that is made in terms of the partnership between the states and the federal government.

“There are many states that were involved in the withdrawal of funds over a period of time. We don’t go out to embarrass anybody but we take action. The kind of action we take is that if we noticed gross violation, we close down the matching grant account, we freeze it and then ask the state to come and tell us exactly what had happened with the fund.”

Bobboyi however said that some of these infractions have been greatly minimised with the coming of the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said it was a fact that some states are trying but there were still serious challenges including payment of salaries of teachers which many state governments are owing up to several months.

He added: “You can provide the inputs, infrastructure and all what you think, at the end of the day, if you don’t pay the teachers, the entire infrastructure would amount to nothing because there could be no meaningful teaching and learning taking place with the four walls of education.”

He emphasised that Nigeria could not make any headway in terms of development if the basic education continue to suffer neglect, saying Korea and most other countries that were at the same level of development with Nigeria jumped up the ladder after laying solid foundation for basic education.