Students’ loan: Institutions involved in illegality to be dealt with administratively – NELFUND

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has vowed to deal with institutions that go contrary to the terms and conditions surrounding the students’ loan. The managing director of the fund, Akintunde Sawyerr, said while the fund lacks the statutory power to suspend, remove or expel erring heads of institutions, any traced illegality will be reported […]

The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has vowed to deal with institutions that go contrary to the terms and conditions surrounding the students’ loan.

The managing director of the fund, Akintunde Sawyerr, said while the fund lacks 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.

Sawyerr spoke in Abuja on Wednesday during an interview with journalists on the third day stakeholders’ engagement session/ workshop on NELFUND system automation and loan application processes.

This is even as he said any institution hoarding the information about the payment of students’ loan from the beneficiaries is committing a crime.

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Speaking on the challenges involved in accessing the loan by the students, Sawyerr noted that management of higher institutions must realise that they must be proactive in disbursing money to the beneficiaries once they are paid by NELFUND.

He said the agency has disbursed funds to 303 institutions on behalf of 293,000 students.

“We have over 500,000 students who have successfully applied, not necessarily approved. They have managed to apply.

“We have about 570,000 in total who have registered. You have to register before you can apply. Some of those who have registered have applied. Others are taking their time. Maybe they want to understand it a bit better.

“To give a straight answer to your question, we have 303 institutions that we have paid on behalf of 293,000 students.

“The way we work is that we go to the institutions beforehand, we tell the students what to do, we tell the management of the institutions, what to do. We bring them all together and say this is how the scheme works,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFund) has explained how it disbursed N54 billion out of the N203 billion it has so far received for disbursement to student as beneficiaries of the student loans programme

 The Managing Director (MD) of NELFund gave the details while speaking at a meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on Students Loans on Wednesday.

 The meeting comes on the heel of allegations by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) about infractions in the disbursement of the loans by some tertiary institutions.