No Act mandates Board on revenue generation
– JAMB By Dayo Adesulu The Senate has resolved to investigate the low remittance by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and to also visit WAEC and NECO on the same. JAMB logo The resolution was a sequel to the adoption of a motion under matter of urgent public importance, moved by Sen. Dino Melaye. Moving the motion, Melaye said that JAMB before 2016 paid into the federation account a meagre N50 million as revenue generated from the University and Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).
He said the revenue increased to five billion naira in 2016 and N7.8 billion in 2017. The senator, however, expressed concern why the revenue remitted by JAMB in the past had been low. He said:“Since JAMB can remit seven billion naira in one month, we must work on relevant agencies as the National Examination Council (NECO) and the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to generate more revenue.
“There is the need for the Senate Committee to effectively carry out its oversight function with a view to finding out what went wrong in the past and block all the leakages in the agencies. Also, the Senate Leader, Sen. Ahmed Lawan said, “something was amiss and we need to find out what happened in the past and why there was a sudden increase in remittances.’’ In his remarks, the President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, directed the Senate Committee on Education to investigate the matter and educate the Senate on reasons for the increased remittances. Saraki stressed the need to know what action had been taken to get those people, who were there in the past to explain what happened,’’ Saraki said. In his reaction, the Spokesperson of JAMB, Dr Fabian Benjamin said:
”’There is no Act in the establishment of the Board that mandated it to generate revenue for the Federal Government. We are not generating revenue for the Federal Government. ”What we collect from candidates are liabilities for the service we have not rendered. But in the event whereby we have excess, it is only natural to know that it’s not your, therefore you return it to the government. ”It is not a revenue we generate, but excess of what we spent. ”It’s like given a child N2,000 to do a job, and the child discovered he has executed the job with N1,000. A good child will say, daddy, this is what remains. What we have done is to demonstrate that we are transparent and return the left over.
”That was why some people are arguing that if for five years and we discovered we are having that much, why can’t we reduce the price. But before we can reduce the cost of a form, we have to ensure that we are consistently for some years. Because there may be some variables and trouble you may into in the future.
Source:Vanguard
