Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Olatunj Alausa, has called for the urgent release of budget allocation from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) to improve services in the federal government-owned unity Schools across the country, especially in the area of feeding.
The Minister made the call during a courtesy visit paid on him by the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Shamsudeen Ogunjimi, in Abuja, Nigeria.
Alauasa said the delay in the release of overhead has led to the inability of the ministry to fund the feeding of the unity schools.
“The last overhead release to the Federal Ministry of Education was in March, and the last school feeding budget received was for April. We’re going through a rough patch. Principals are under pressure from contractors who are blackmailing them over unpaid contracts.”
He said there were situations where he had to delay resumption of some Unity Schools because of inadequate funds urging the AGF to help fast-track payments, while proposing for quarterly release of the overhead instead of the current month end release.
“The quarterly release model will enable the ministry to plan ahead and pay contractors, thereby engendering stability in the system’’ he said.
The minister also called for the decentralisation of financial approvals in such a way that transactions under ₦500 million could be processed at the ministry level, and those under ₦100 million at the agency level to enable the pay of contractors on time to enhance efficiency and service delivery in the education sector.
“I would suggest that rather than all payments, even as low as 1 million coming to you, I think you should look back and see which one you can domicile at the ministry and the agencies level. I think this bottom to top approach will ease a lot of things and improve efficiency,’’ he said.
Nigeria has over 100 Federal Government Colleges, popularly called Unity colleges, spread across the country to promote national unity and bring together students from diverse backgrounds.
It aims to foster a sense of national identity and cohesion among Nigeria youth as they are being prepared to develop the country in future
The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Shamsudeen Ogunjimi, while responding said going forward, the OAGF will prioritize funding for the Federal Ministry of Education, especially the release of overhead for timely funding of Unity Schools across the country.
He said funding of the education sector is important because of the fundamental role it plays in building the nation.
He urged the Director of Finance and Accounts (DFA) of the ministry of education to promptly submit a formal request to fast-track the process and enable timely disbursement of funds to the ministry.
“We will prioritize the releases of overhead to the ministry and make sure that, even if others are not getting it due to funding constraints, the Ministry of Education gets theirs on time,” he said.
On the request for the bottom to top approach, Ogunjimi acknowledged that the approach is good but due to fiscal deficits, it has become almost impracticable for now as it puts pressure on the limited financial resources of the country.
He, however said the ministry of finance had already set up a high-level committee to review the merits and shortcomings of the bottom-up approach, with outcomes expected in the coming weeks.
Ogunjimi equally acknowledged that the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) had been overwhelmed by the volume of budget documentation being uploaded by agencies due to the centralised system.
“Our capacity on Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) we are using has been overstretched because all agencies are required to upload all their documents to the platform. So, we continually have to go and expand,’’ he said
Acknowledging the minister’s observation, Ogunjimi said there was the need for most of the contracts that are of less value to be handled at the MDA level so that the OAGF would not have to be populating documents on their system.