ICPC confirms discrepancies in the administration of the student loan

The independent corrupt practices and other related crimes (ICPC) have declared that they had confirmed the discrepancies in the administration of the student loan regime.

The director, public enlightenment and ICPC education, Demola Bakare said this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

He said that with the confirmation of discrepancies in the loan administration, the Commission had concluded the plans to extend his investigations to the beneficiary institutions and the individual students of the recipients.

Bakare said that the Commission previously investigated the alleged discrepancies relating to the provision of student loans pursuant to the loans for Nigerian education loans (in theFund).

According to him, the survey followed a media report claiming that no less than 51 tertiary institutions were implicated in illegal deductions and exploitation in the nelfund regime.

He said that the institutions have present unauthorized deductions ranging from N3.500 to N30.000 from the institutional expenses of each student received through the loan fund.

The ICPC spokesman stated that the preliminary results revealed a significant gap in the financial registers of the fund’s supply process.

He said that while the Federal Government has released N100 billion for the regime, only N28.8 billion have been paid to students, leaving an uninitiated sum of N71.2 billion.

Bakare said that the Commission’s Special Task Force of the President immediately took place after receiving the report by sending investigation and invitations to the main parties concerned.

He said that those communicated were the general manager of the budget office, the general accounting of the Federation and high officials of the Nigeria Central Bank.

The ICPC spokesman stated that the CEO and the executive directors of Nellfund were invited to provide documentation and explanations relevant to the case.

According to him, the responses received were analyzed critically and interviews with the people concerned were conducted.

He said the investigations revealed that the total money received from Nelphund starting from 19 March 2024 was n203.8 billion.

“The rupture showed that N10 billion was a allocation of the Committee for the Federation’s allocation accounts, N50 billion came from the Commission for Economic and Financial Crimes and N71.9 billion came from the trustees of the tertiary education.

“Another N71.9 billion has also been from the same Tertiary trustee fund.

“The ICPC, however, discovered that the total amount paid to the institutions from the beginning to date is about N44.200.933,649.00, while a total of 299 institutions have benefited from the funds issued.

“To date, the total amount paid to 299 beneficiary institutions is about N44.2 billion, with 293,178 students who have benefited from the fund,” he said.