Group Petitions ICPC, FCT Minister over Illegal Imposition of Fee on Secondary Schools
Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
A group, Citizens’ Rights, Accountability and Development (ICRAD) has petitioned the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mohammed Bello, to investigate the illegal imposition of levies on secondary school students by FCT Education Board.
The Executive Director, Mr. Hassan Luqman while addressing a press conference yesterday in Abuja, said ICRAD through petition invited the anti-graft agency to look into the illegal imposition of a mandatory, unauthorised and illegal payment of N1,500 PTA levy” per annum on all students in JS 3, SS 1, SS 2 and SS 3 in the FCT by the Board; a levy which cumulatively runs into a hundreds of millions of Naira annually.
“We stated that the N1,500 payment foisted on indigent students and their poor parents run contrary to legal enactments such as the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act, the Public Procurement Act as well as the Treasury Single Account (TSA) regulations which are extant laws that ordinarily ought to govern such levy, its collection and/or expenditure – if it was actually deemed necessary and fair to be imposed in the first place.”
The group noted that students were being forced to pay the said amount per session outside the official fees recognised by FCTA for Senior Secondary School Students in FCT.
Luqman noted that this fee, which was tied to the School Management System (SMS), only allowed the students to check their results online.
He said the fee was not paid into any of the recognised school accounts linked to the government Treasury Single Account (TSA) but into a private company’s account.
The group alleged that the Account Name with which the fee is paid is Shokami Consulting Limited, while the Account Number is domiciled at one of the new generation banks.
It noted that this was not only contrary to the federal government’s Treasury Single Account Policy which the FCT Administration has keyed into, but also against the principle of accountability which is the hallmark of financial regulations.
The group wondered why students of public schools would be mandated to pay fees meant for parts of their academic activities into a private company’s account.
It said: “Assuming without conceding that the said fee is for consultancy services rendered to FCT Secondary School Board, it is the responsibility of the Board to pay for the consultancy under the Public Procurement Act and not the students.”
“How in the world are payments running into a couple of hundreds of millions of naira for a well thought out and laudable project as an “FCT-wide School Management System” under the supervision of the Education Secretariat and/or SEB of the nation’s Capital City – FCT.”
The group insisted that the issue remained hazy in the entire fees racketeering scandal in FCT schools, insisting it must be unearthed in the interest of probity, transparency, accountability and due process in the generation and expenditure of resources by public officials.
