The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has cautioned heads of tertiary institutions against demanding illegal charges from students after paying their fees on their behalf.
Its Managing Director, Akintunde Sawyerr, gave the warning yesterday. It was during the last day of the stakeholders meeting and engagement with Heads of Colleges of Education, Agriculture, Health and Nursing in Abuja.
Sawyerr said while NELFUND lacked the statutory power to suspend, remove or expel erring heads of institutions, any traced illegality will be reported and dealt with administratively by the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa.
The NELFUND boss said the agency would not allow the initiative of President Bola Tinubu towards making education accessible to willing Nigerians to be sabotaged on the altar of selfish interest.
He said the commitment of the agency is to pay all registration charges that will admit students into classes for lectures, tutorials, and examination halls, among others.
Sawyerr said 303 institutions have received institutional fees on behalf of 293,000 students.
He added that the loan is applicable with how it has been set up and this includes JAMB, NIN, BVN and the matric numbers, while remarking that the longevity seems to have attracted more people.
Sawyerr said: “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. I repeat, they must have access to education, lectures, classes, tutorials and examinations.
“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. And 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.
“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 committing a crime.
The NELFUND boss emphasized that any institution found guilty of such practices would face administrative action, stating, “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 and if 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.”
