FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MOVES TO STRENGTHEN STUDENT LOAN DISBURSEMENT 14-05-25
By Sadiq Aminu The Federal Government has set up a committee to address grey areas in the disbursement of Student loans.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Olatunji Alausa made this known in Abuja during a meeting with Heads of Tertiary Institutions and the Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFund.
The meeting was called at the instance of the Minister of Education due to growing concerns of fraud allegations at NELFund.
The Committee is to develop clear timelines to guide the disbursement process and ensure effective service delivery.
Dr. Alausa explained that investigations by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC revealed that there was no misappropriation of the funds meant for student loans but issues regarding the process of registration and disbursement.
“There is no fraud in the Nelfund. What the issue we had was some process issue that had to do with a timeline for the disbursement of funds from the Nelfund to our universities, and timelines of when universities get the funds and notify our students.” He said.
The Minister who said the Committee had three weeks to complete its assignment, highlighted their terms of reference.
“They include standardizing the nomenclature of charges, come up with timelines on when Nelfund will pay the fees to the universities, decide on timelines on when universities will notify students once they’ve gotten the money from Nelfund and the way the universities will notify students. They have to decide whether to notify them by email, notify them by SMS, or call them, or a mixture of some of those ways of notification” Alausa said.
Dr. Alausa stated that the NELFUnd portal has been synced with that of the Universities for smooth communication.
The Minister of Education urged the Tertiary institutions to allow the students that applied for the loan to continue with their academic activities until the issues are sorted out and proper verifications are made.
The Committee which is headed by the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Professor Abdullahi Ribadu has the Heads of Tertiary institutions, NELFund and officials of the Ministry as members.