The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has vowed to deal with institutions that go contrary to the terms and conditions surrounding the student loan funds paid to it.
The Managing Director, NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyer, said this in Abuja on Wednesday, at the day-three stakeholders meeting and engagement with Heads of Colleges of Education, Agriculture, Health and Nursing.
Sawyer said that NELFUND lacked the statutory power to suspend, remove or expel erring heads of institutions.
He, therefore, said that any traced illegality would be reported and dealt with administratively by the Minister of Education.
According to him, the NELFUND will not allow the initiative of President Bola Tinubu towards making education accessible to willing Nigerians to be sabotaged on the alter of selfish interest.
He explained that the commitment of NELFUND was to pay all registration charges that would admit students into classes for lectures tutorials, and exams among others.
He revealed that so far, 303 institutions had been paid on behalf of 293,000 students who applied for the fund.
“The commitment of NELFUND is to pay all their registration charges. Our instruction is that once they have paid their institutional charges, they must have access to education, lectures, classes, tutorials and examination.
“We paid the whole amount, we don’t want the students to put their hands in their pockets and bring out money, and we do not want students to pay because the school told them they haven’t received any money when they already have.
“That’s going to be a serious matter and will be attended to administratively if anything illegal is going on.
“They will be dealt with as criminal offences if schools are asking students to pay when we already have paid,” he said.
He further said that there won’t be any kind of refund since the institutions were supposed to notify the students of their payment by the Fund.
“This is not an issue of refund. There are certain instances when we have made payments to schools after the students have actually paid because we started payment mid- cycle.
“But anybody who pays to the school after the school has received money from NELFUND is commiting a crime.
“We don’t have the power to sanction; we can’t suspend, remove or expel, but if we find anything, we have to take it to the minister because it’s criminal in nature.
“We have to escalate it to the agencies that will ensure that economic crimes and practices are not being committed.
“We can’t also punish the students for refusing to pay for next session in the name of sanctioning the school. So we are threading with caution,” he explained.
Sawyerr said that erring institutions would be made to face the music, noting that the minister of education was determined that the programme by President Bola Tinubu would not be sabotage by selfish interest.
Appreciating public outcry on real or perceived illegalities, Sawyer revealed that plans for thorough investigation into the matter had been concluded with the separate investigative panels including the National Orientation Agency, NELFUND and the federal ministry of education.
“We are already conducting our own investigation. The NOA is conducting its own investigation, and the ministry of education through the honourable minister is conducting a holistic investigation,” he said.
