By Olaitan Ibrahim
The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has vowed to deal with institutions that go contrary to the terms and conditions surrounding the student loan funds paid to it.
The Managing Director, NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyer, said this in Abuja on Wednesday, at the day-three stakeholders meeting and engagement with Heads of Colleges of Education, Agriculture, Health and Nursing.
Sawyer said that NELFUND lacked the statutory power to suspend, remove or expel erring heads of institutions.
He, therefore, said that any traced illegality would be reported and dealt with administratively by the Minister of Education.
According to him, NELFUND will not allow the initiative of President Bola Tinubu towards making education accessible to willing Nigerians to be sabotaged on the alter of selfish interest.
He explained that the commitment of NELFUND was to pay all registration charges that would admit students into classes for lectures tutorials, and exams among others.
He revealed that so far, 303 institutions had been paid on behalf of 293,000 students who applied for the fund.
“The commitment of NELFUND is to pay all their registration charges. Our instruction is that once they have paid their institutional charges, they must have access to education, lectures, classes, tutorials and examination.
“We paid the whole amount, we don’t want the students to put their hands in their pockets and bring out money, and we do not want students to pay because the school told them they haven’t received any money when they already have.
“That’s going to be a serious matter and will be attended to administratively if anything illegal is going on.
“They will be dealt with as criminal offences if schools are asking students to pay when we already have paid,” he said.