Education Commission clarifies issues on N110b Un-utilised intervention funds

The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), says it is not in possession of the sum of N110billion un-utilised 2021 States intervention funds.

The Commission clarified that the level of un-accessed matching grant from 2005-2021 as at 6th June, 2022 was N30.8 billion while the total of disbursements of matching grant to states stood at N533.7 billion over the same period of time.

It’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. David Apeh made these known in a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday.

Mr Apeh was reacting to the media report which alleged that about N110 billion un-utilised intervention funds accessed from the commission by states in 2021 was left in its coffers.

UBEC described the report as fake and baseless.

According to the statement; “the attention of the Management of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) has been drawn to an Editorial by the Sun Newspaper of 20th June, 2023 to the effect that about N110 billion of the intervention funds accessed from UBEC were not utilised by states as of 2021 with the money left in the coffers of State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs).

“The report was not only a misrepresentation of comments made by the Executive Secretary of UBEC at a briefing to flag off the 2022 National Personnel Audit (NPA) but a mischievous way of distorting facts to put the Commission in the bad light.”

“The authors also falsely alleged corruption at UBEC and calling for thorough investigation and the culprits brought to book by the government while also talking about undue politicisation of UBEC Funds.

“It is important to state that anybody who is abreast with the way UBEC operates as an intervention Agency, would understand that there is no way it would release money to coffers of states up to N110 billion without utilisation.

“The way UBEC operates is that you must utilise the first allocation to you before you are qualified to access the next year’s matching grant. It is evidence-based and the projects are also strictly monitored by the Commission,” the statement read.

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It said; “To set the records straight, there is no time the Executive Secretary of UBEC, lamented that the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were not coming forth with the counterpart funds that will enable them to access the annual matching grant.

“What the Executive Secretary said while responding to a question on the total amount of un-accessed fund was that it was between N28 to N30 billion but insisted that the accounting department should supply the correct figures at the end of the briefing so that wrong information is not sent out to the public.”

Mercy Chukwudiebere