From John Adams, Minna
The Registrar and Chief Executive of the National Examination Council of Nigeria (NECO) Professor Dantani Ibrahim Wushishi has appealed to the Federal Government to remove the examinations body from the list of agencies mandated to remit 25 per cent of their income to the Treasury Single Account (TSA)
The Registrar argued that the continue remittance of the 25 per cent of its Examinations fees being charged by the council will soon cripple its activities, as the fees are meant for the conduct of examinations. Professor Wushishi made the appealed at the Council’s headquarters in Minna on Thursday shortly after releasing the 2021 SSCE External examination result conducted by the council.
Professor Wushishi said NECO as an extermination body, should be regarded as a social service organization and not among agencies established to generate revenue to the government, as such should be exempted from remitting 25 per cent of its examinations to the government.
“We’ve made our case through the Ministry of Education, and we are hoping that something positive would be done. We believed that the government would listen and respond to our demands so as to cater to the numerous challenges facing the examination body because the continuous remittance of the 25 per cent from what the organisation collects as fees will cripple our activities,” he added. Professor Wushishi also argued that the new Duty Travelling Allowance (DTA) recently approved by the President will further compound the problems of the council, as it will have no choice than pay the adjusted DTA.
“We have to source for the money from our earning such as the examination registration fees to be able to pay.”
According to him, “from our calculation, we need over N2 billion to be able to withstand the new DTA recently approved by the government.”
The registrar, however, appreciated the Federal Government for the recent approval of over N4billion for the council but added that the council needs more funding from the government to cater for other activities. He pointed out that the amount approved would largely be used in servicing the debt from already supplied sensitive and non-sensitive materials for conducting exams.