Falana-led group seeks direct disbursement of UBEC funds to states

The Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), a civil society organisations (CSO), has asked the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to directly disburse its funding to beneficiary states and the federal capital territory (FCT).

The group, in a letter signed by the human rights lawyer Femi Falana, said direct disbursement will help to address Nigeria’s out-of-school children crisis.

The United Nations Education And Social Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) data reveals that Nigeria has an estimated 20.2 million out-of-school children.

This is happening despite the UBEC Act of 2004 providing for compulsory and free basic education for all children of primary and junior secondary school age.

To revamp basic education, Nigeria introduced an intervention fund for states and the FCT to be coordinated by UBEC.

The fund guarantees each state and the FCT an average of N1.5 billion in annual funding for basic education.

The initiative has, however, suffered setbacks like the non-provision of matching grants required to access the fund by some states.

In 2021 for instance, the federal government contributed N946 million to each state.

This means each state must also contribute another N946 million, making a total allocation of N1.89 billion to one state under UBEC.

The projects for the previous year’s grant must have attained a 70 percent completion before the next fiscal year’s grant can be accessed.

The inability to meet these terms has left many states unable to access grants from the UBEC fund.

This has, in consequence, contributed to a chronic infrastructure shortage in public schools and left millions of children out of school.

ASCAB wrote to UBEC requesting that the commission “directly” fund the beneficiary states to reduce out-of-school children.

The group said UBEC revealed that the total un-accessed grants from all states and the FCT stood at N68, 737, 873, 073. 52 as of December 11.

“State governments have failed to comply with section 3 of the Education Reforms Act which mandates them to contribute half (50%) of the total cost of projects to be executed in the state as its commitment in the execution of the projects,” the group said.

“We are compelled to call on the UBEC to disburse the fund directly.

“This call is in line with the combined effect of sections 12 and 17 which have saddled the commission with the responsibility to ensure effective implementation, evaluation and monitoring of the Universal Basic Education programme of the federal government.”

The group threateneed to seek a court order compelling the federal government to directly disburse the funds.

This, the group said, will follow if UBEC fails to act in accordance to demands by January 15.

“As a matter of urgency, we call on the federal government, State Governments, and the 774 Local Governments to adopt remedial measures to ensure the immediate registration of the 20.2 million out-of-school children in schools,” ASCAB said.

“If the said sum of N68 billion unmatched grant is not accessed by the 36 state governments and the Federal Capital Territory before January 15, 2024, we shall seek an order of mandamus to compel them to do so forthwith.”