THE UNUTILISED N250BN UBEC FUNDS
The states must show more commitment to primary education
In a bid to help the Nigerian child access good education, especially at the foundation level, the federal government established the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) in 1999. Its mandate is to administer a fund to all the 36 states of the federation as part of measures to standardise primary education. The UBEC fund is an annual grant to help the states upgrade their primary education facilities. To access the fund, state governments are required to match the federal government’s grant.
Unfortunately, authorities in many of the states have chosen to imperil the future of children by refusing either to access the grants or utilise the funds even when they do. This is simply because they do not want to be accountable. But reviewing the guidelines for accessing the funds “to make them more flexible”, as revealed last week by the Minister of State for Education, Suwaiba Ahmad, is not right. Especially with UBEC accusing the state governments of not making use of the N250 billion they accessed from the commission. Some of the issues identified by UBEC include non-compliance with the fund guidelines, and due process in the award of contracts, diversion of funds, non-deduction and remittance of taxes, non-adherence to the approved action plan, etc.
It is unfortunate that despite the growing number of out-of-school children across the country, many of the governors still shun this special intervention fund due to the demand of counterpart funding, which is a needed demonstration of seriousness for entitlement. These governors fail to understand that by not using UBEC funds, they are downplaying a commitment to transparency and accountability to the people whose interests they have sworn to protect. They are also mortgaging the future of our children. While they ignore this facility, many children study under deplorable conditions, including having lessons under trees and dilapidated classrooms while the quality of teachers remain suspect.
We fail to understand why many state governors have not realised the importance of the facility intended to secure a solid foundation for the future of their children. Indeed, records abound of reckless and frivolous expenditures by many states, despite the difficulties in meeting their basic responsibilities, even in the primary education sector. Meanwhile, primary education does not fall within the purview of the federal government and the two per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) it set aside for equal distribution to all the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to support basic education was a response to a felt national need. While this intervention fund is not supposed to be the main or alternative fund for that critical education sub-sector, many state governments speak about it with a sense of entitlement. Interestingly, the states complaining of inadequate funds to rebuild classrooms, train teachers and provide instructional materials are the ones putting forward all sorts of arguments against rules for access to the special intervention funds.
While only a few states are enforcing the UBE law which requires every child to be in school from primary to junior secondary school at public expense, the governors have been making spirited efforts to amend Sections 9 (b) and 11(2) of the UBEC Act that spell out criteria for entitlement to the funds. We hope the federal government is not trying to indulge them by creating a situation in which the funds would be collected without accountability. If anything, the attitude of the governors has only reinforced the need for strict monitoring of UBEC Funds disbursement and utilisation. Reviewing the existing law to make access to the funds easier should not be an option.
