Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), Wednesday urged the National Assembly to take measures to exclude the agency from the revenue targets set for all government agencies.
Prof. Oloyede, who made the call at the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) interaction with the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, said that categorising the examination body as a revenue-generating agency is putting a lot of pressure on the staff.
He told the lawmakers that the conduct of examinations is a social service that is not expected to generate revenue for the coffers of the government.
According to him, all over the entire world, the government does fund this type of institution or expect revenue but it supports them to take their functions.
He informed the panel that the Nigerian examination body had cancelled some of its candidates’ results in the last examination because they got information that some parents paid huge money to enable their children and wards to pass the assessment-based examination.
He told the committee that almost all the Colleges of Education in Nigeria were not admitting up to 20% of their carrying capacity adding that there are 300,000 candidates seeking admission to study Medicine in Nigerian universities.
On revenue remittances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the federation, he said that the agency had paid in N3.120 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in the year 2021.
Also speaking on revenue projections, he said that the agency is setting a target of N4 billion this time adding that there is now consistency in the payment of it by the body.
Responding, the deputy chairman of the committee, Hon. Abdullahi Seidu said that the examination body should rather exploit its huge revenue generation potential and pay more earnings into the Federal Government coffers.
