After months, Bauchi govt pays WAEC, other exam debts | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
9th November 2019
Months after the conduct and release of results of some public examinations in Nigeria, the Bauchi State government has finally paid the debt owed to various examining bodies.
Under an arrangement for years, the state government usually pays the examination fees on behalf of students in its public schools.
The fees running into about half a billion naira were owed since the Muhammad Abubakar led administration to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) and the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS).
But because of its failure to pay since 2018, the students have had their results withheld by the examining bodies.
EduCeleb.com gathered that that of the National Examinations Council (NECO) had been paid in October.
Bauchi Commissioner for Education, Aliyu Tilde revealed on Saturday that a bulk of the other arrears had also been offset.
He assured candidates that they would now be able to see their withheld results soon.
“NABTEB and NBAIS examination debts for 2019 were settled by the Ministry 100% yesterday (Friday),” he said.
He however noted that the ministry was only able to pay WAEC only N176million of the N226 million debt Governor Bala Mohammed inherited from his predecessor.
“The rest will be settled in monthly instalments until it is completely settled or whenever we have some bulk money to use,” he added.
He said that the government had assurances from the Bauchi WAEC office that once receipt of the money was confirmed, the withheld WAEC results would be released.
He hoped that this intervention would make it possible for candidates who may want to use the results for 2019/2020 admissions are able to do so.