Budget: Senate Committee Queries JAMB Over N500m Staff Welfare
BY TEMI OHAKWE, ABUJA – The Senate Committee on Basic Education has queried the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) over N500million devoted to its staff welfare aside their regular salaries.
This is coming against the backdrop of JAMB’s claim of 100 percent performance of its 2020 budget.
These were contained in JAMB weekly bulletin in which the Senate Committee assured that it would pursue the amendment of the law establishing the Board to enable it limit the age of candidates writing the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to 16 years and above.
While briefing the Senate Committee, JAMB Registrar, Prof. Oloyede said that the board does not have powers to disqualify any candidate on the basis of age, stating that individual institutions can decide on who to admit as it is the case with the University of Ibadan which does not admit candidates below 16 years.
Oloyede explained that the budget of the board was only 75 per cent implemented as the government issued a directive that 25 per cent of funds budgeted should be returned to the federation account.
He said that staff of the Board were properly incentivised to avoid the temptation of colluding with fraudsters to commit malpractice while conducting it’s exercises across the country, stating that part of the expenses were on their local travels, transportation and allowances.
The JAMB Registrar said that the Board sought the approval of the wages and salaries commission to pay its staff 13th month salary every year.
On the issue of general services and security, Oloyede said a minimum of three Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), operatives were deployed to each centre during the 2021 UTME and paid a minimum of N45,000.
While speaking on the N1.027 billion paid out to CBT centres in the 2020 budget, Oloyede explained that N600 was paid to each CBT Centre per candidate in addition to other incentives.
He said that JAMB intends to transform its headquarters in Bwari into an international examination centre as soon as it establishes a 2,500 capacity Computer Based Test (CBT) centre, whereby agencies wishing to conduct examination can patronise.
Speaking on the issue of low cut-off marks for education candidates, he said the issue of determining cut-off marks was due to competition, adding that even if education cut-off marks are reduced to 120, institutions will not be able to fill up to 50 per cent of their carrying capacity.
On the general performance for UTME in 2021, Oloyede said the Board has been able to use the profile code and NIN to arrest the issue of multiple registration, adding that in 2021, NIMC supplied pictures of candidates in addition to the one captured by JAMB at the point of registration.
He alleged that some security agencies were involved in exam malpractice by swapping candidates after they have been cleared through the biometrics process, adding that at least two of them have been arrested after they were detected through CCTV cameras.
Oloyede said that some candidates’ results may be withdrawn if after reviewing the exercise on CCTV, they are found to be culpable of malpractice.
