The Oyo State governor, Mr Seyi Makinde has explained why the state government had refused to fund public schools in the first term 2020/2021 session.
He described as half-truth reports of failure of his administration to release running grants to schools such that first term examination questions were written on chalkboards.
Pictures of examination questions written with chalk had gone viral on the digital media just as National Editor, internal journal of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Oyo State chapter, Mr Seye Obadina, while featuring on a radio programme in Ibadan, also mentioned the failure of the Makinde government to provide school running grants for the past two terms.
Addressing the situation during the Omituntun Mega Praise and End of the Year Thanksgiving service on Tuesday, Makinde decried that the teachers’ union was dishing out half-truth on why the running grants had not been released.
Makinde explained that he withheld approval of another grant due to failure of managers of schools to account for how the grant issued at the start of the 2019/2020 session was expended.
It will be recalled that the state government had in October 2019 released N526 million as running costs for public schools for the first term of the 2019/2020 academic session.
The sum of N126 million was released to its 2,500 primary schools and N400 million for about 640 secondary schools.
“I saw on the social media where teachers of primary schools were shown writing examination questions for the just-concluded term on chalkboards. It is true.
“But they also went on radio to say that the reason for that was because the government didn’t release running grants.
“I released grants at the start of the last session. They later wrote requesting for another grant. I asked them to explain how the last grant was spent but they gave no explanation.
“Due to their failure to account for the earlier one, I did not approve another grant.
“They went on the radio and are not telling the people the truth that the reason I did not release another grant just yet is that they did not account for the grant earlier given,” Makinde said.
Speaking further, he noted that with the establishment of the Oyo Anti-corruption agency, the state had a platform to ensure accountability for all funds released.
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