The revelation that Imo and Anambra are among the five states that abandoned a total of over N29 billion naira of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) find accruable to them for refusal of the affected state governments to pay the requisite 50% counterpart fund to enable them access the largesse has kept tongues wagging, considering the decay, dilapidation and shortage of infrastructure in most public schools in the state.
Some of the states with high un-accessed fund are Anambra, Ogun, Imo Edo and Ebonyi each of which has about N2 billion lying fallow in the coffers of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Leading the pack of states with high un-accessed fund 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 August 17, 2021, indicated that the five states had refused to pay the requisite counterpart fund to access the over 10 billion cumulatively disbursed to them for 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 N130 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, Honourable Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, described as unfortunate, the inability of some states of the federation to access over N130 billion made available by UBEC for development of primary education in their states.
He spoke at the 65th National Council on Education meeting in Jalingo, Taraba State, saying over N130 million in UBEC custody is still unutilised as a result of inability of states to provide their 50 per cent counterpart funds.
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, 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 are Niger, with N1.7 billion and Enugu, N1.56 billion. 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 was disbursed as matching grant to states from 2005 to 2020.
