9th July, 2019
Five Nigerian States are yet to access the Paris Club counterparts fund for basic education in full, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) said on Tuesday.
The states are: Anambra, Edo, Ekiti, Nasarawa, Kano and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Bobboyi disclosed this when he issued a comprehensive list of states that have so far accessed the Paris Club counterpart fund disbursement to states in Abuja.
He said that Abia, Akwa-Ibom, Jigawa, Imo, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Delta, Yobe, Kebbi, Kogi, Ebonyi, Niger, Lagos, Ogun and Plateau have accessed their funds in full as at July 9, 2019.
Other states that had accessed were: Bayelsa, Bauchi, Enugu,Kaduna, Katsina, Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Gombe Sokoto, and Zamfara.
He said that those that were yet to access the fund should come up and follow the required guidelines to be able to access it.
According to him, for a state to access the current fund, such state must have paid 75 per cent of the previous year’s fund to be qualified in accessing the current fund.
However, from the document given to NAN, Abia was able to pay N2,330,682,113.57 as matching grant to be able to access the Paris Club fund – while Akwa-Ibom paid N2,703,556550.86 to access its fund.
Also, Bauchi was able to pay N2,268, 903,280.76; Bayelsa, N4,187,682,198.84; Borno, N1,473,832,843.82 and Lagos N1,473,832,845.30, among others.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mr Sonny Echono at a one-day meeting to strengthen partnership within the three tiers of government on the Sustainable Development Goals 4 (SDGs-4), urged FCT and other states that were yet to access the funds to do so for development of the educational sector.
Echono said the Federal Government had addressed the challenges of accessing the Universal Basic Education Fund using the Paris Club loan refund.
He, therefore, commended states that had accessed the fund while encouraging the remaining states to do the needful by submitting the relevant plans.