13 dormant education agencies gulp N37bn

Reports indicate that some agencies under the Federal Ministry of Education that have been dormant for years have however been faithfully allocated allocation, which are collected without fail every year for doing next to nothing.

Investigation by Leadership shows that 13 of the agencies in the ministry have collected N36.77 billion in the last two years with nothing tangible to show for it.

Out of the 22 agencies under the ministry, only six seem to understand the reasons behind their existence. The six have performed up to expectation or, at least, can be given a pass mark while the dormant ones are performing below 40 per cent, the lowest pass limit.

LEADERSHIP gathered that apart from the fact that some of the agencies are completely obscure and unknown to the larger populace due to their lack of recognisable impact, the fairly known ones claim to be limited by the Acts (laws) of their establishment, inadequate funds from the federation account after an overview of their budget by the National Assembly, and their inactive or incompetent executive secretaries/directors-general.

Between 2013-2014, those that have been weighed on Nigeria’s educational scale and found wanting are the Nigerian Institute for Education Planners and Administration (NIEPA), which has in the last two years spent 1,877,921,245 (N1.8bn); National Library of Nigeria, N10,768,887,570 (N10.7bn); National Mass Literacy Commission, N2, 276,536,394 (N2.27bn); National Commission for Nomadic Education, N1,435,139,342 (N1.4bn); National Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), N3,136,178,796 (N3.1bn), and National Business and Technical Education Board (NABTEB), N2,566,815,836 (N2.56bn).

Others are Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), N1,662,063,801(N1.6bn); Computer Registration Council of Nigeria, N529,987,694 (N530m); National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), N2,024,719,249 (N2bn); National Teachers Institute (NTI), N6,167,050,703 (N6.1bn); Librarians Registration Council of Nigeria (LRCN), N454,954,191 (N455m) and National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), N2,955,715,617 (N2.95bn).

The National Mathematical Centre (NMC) was given N917,351,358 (N917.3m) in 2014 but was not captured in the 2013 list. The National Board for Educational Management (NBEM) and National Institute for Nigerian Languages (NINL) were completely left out of the 2013 and 2014 lists and this has raised suspicions.

Some stakeholders have attributed this to the fact that some of the agencies have no legal backing, but operate under fiat and can as well be scrapped at will.

The agencies that have showed some appreciable level of performance include Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), National Universities Commission (NUC), Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), West African Examination Council (WAEC) local and international, National Examinations Council (NECO) and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC).

They, however, still have room for improvement.

Non -performing agencies: Lawyers react

Some senior lawyers who spoke on telephone called for the scrapping of some non-performing or dormant government agencies.

A member of the transition committee, Malam Abubakar Malami, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), noted that some government parastatals were set up without legal backing and should be done away with at once.

“Arising from certain discovery, some parastatals were set up without legal backing and in my view you do not require any law to scrap them.

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“The laws that set up those that are not living up to expectations or are dormant should be reviewed so that government can cut its spending and not continue to spend money on MDAs that are not performing,” he said.

Another senior lawyer, Dr. Tunji Abayomi, shares Malami’s view.

“I believe that will be done. The Acts establishing them should be reviewed to be able to cut down on government spending in line with the policy of the new government.”

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