NCCE Wants Perm Sec Replaced
From Juliana Taiwo in Abuja
National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) has suggested that to fasten delivery of service in line with Federal Government's directive, there's need for the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Alhaji Ibrahim Talba who is the Chairman, Ministerial Due Process to delegate someone to act on his behalf during the meetings in other to faciliate quick release of funds meant for them.
The Acting Executive Secretary, Alhaji Jibrin Baba disclosed this during the working visit of the House Committee on Education to the Commission.
He suggested that just like the Minister, Professor Fabian Osuji has done for the Resident Due process teams meeting whose ceiling of expenditure had been revised upward to N50,000 from N20,000, the quick release of funds would enable the Colleges of Education supervised by the Commission get their budgetary allocations as at when due for the progressive development of the Colleges of Education and Teacher Education in particular, in the country.
He disclosed to the House Committee Members led by its Chairman, Dr. Garba Shehu Matazu that the sum of N5,746,027,924 has been appropriated to the Commission and the 20 Federal Colleges of Education in 2004 for personnel cost when N724,999,997 was appropriated as overhead costs for the same year. He said, out of this, N3,240,947,393 has been released to the Commission as Personnel cost for the period of January-July 2004.
This, he said represents 97 per cent of appropriated figure for the same period. While N338,333,332 has also been released for overhead cost during the same period, which represents 80 per cent of the appropriation for the same period (January-July, 2004).
He said the 2004 Capital Allocation to NCCE and the 20 Colleges of Education is N1,680,000,000.00 out of which only N91,011,828.25 has been released to six Colleges of Education, while the sum of N28,250,361.33 for two Colleges of education is under processing at the office of the Accountat General of the Federation. The amount released represent seven per cent of the total allocation.
In his remark, Matazu had called on Osuji to use his office to ensure prompt and timely release of funds. He noted with dismay the irregular release of capital votes as appropriated in this year's budget to the Federal Colleges of Education in the country, stressing that it is frustrating the efforts of the Federal Government at delivering positive and qualitative service to the people, thereby denying them the benefits of democracy.
It would be recalled that the House Committee on Education had last weekend summon the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Alhaji Ibrahim Talba, and the two ministers for not covening the expected weekinly meetings since July thereby delaying the funds meant for NCCE. They had wondered why months into the year only seven of the total capital allocation meant for the 20 existing Federal Colleges of education has been released. They were more angry on discovery that the delay had nothing to do with the Ministry of Finance and that Talba was not even in the country but in Athens attending the 2004 Olympics.
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