Minister reacts to the ICPC’s Report On Missing ₦70 Billion Student Loan
The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, has said ₦70 billion did not go missing from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
All Facts Newspaper reports that Alausa said the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) report on missing student loans was sensationalized.
Speaking with Channels TV on Tuesday, the Minister commended the ICPC for retracting its report on the student loans.
“There’s been a lot of sensationalisation in the news on NELFUND in the last few days. The ICPC report saying almost ₦70 billion was not used to service children’s education was retracted. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t a case that ₦100 billion got released to NELFUND and ₦70 billion was looted,” he said.
Alausa explained that the loans were paid into schools account, but the schools failed to notify the students.
“What happened is that fees, sometimes going into hundreds of millions of naira, get paid to the universities, but they don’t notify the students. The students are anxious, thinking their fees haven’t been paid,” he stated.
He stated that the Ministry has set up guidelines to ensure effective communication between schools and their students on the loan scheme.
“We’ve quickly set up guidelines, which we will be discussing with the universities today. We will give timelines on when universities get NELFUND fees and the duration they need to inform students,” he disclosed.
The Minister assured Nigerians that NELFUND remained a “legacy intervention” for the benefit of over 500,000 students and reaffirmed the ministry’s zero-tolerance for fraud.
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