Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has clarified that there are no discrepancies in the disbursement of student loans by Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND).
Gatekeepers News reports that the commission made the clarification in a statement by Demola Bakare, ICPC spokesperson, on Thursday.
ICPC noted that the absence of “not” in the second to the last paragraph of its earlier statement gave the false impression that discrepancies have been found in the disbursement of the loans.
The paragraph reads, “The ICPC confirmed that a clear case of discrepancies has been established in the administration of the student loan scheme and announced that its investigation will now extend to beneficiary institutions and individual student recipients.”
Recall that Bakare earlier in a statement on Thursday, revealed that preliminary findings have revealed a significant gap in the financial records of the disbursement process.
The statement followed a recent report alleging that 51 tertiary institutions were unlawfully deducting sums ranging from N3,500 to N30,000 from students’ institutional fees.
He noted that of the N100 billion released by federal government for the scheme, only N28.8 billion was disbursed to students, leaving an unaccounted sum of N71.2 billion.
However, Bakare later clarified that the omitted word significantly altered the intended message, contradicting the overall context of the statement.
The statement reads, “Unintentionally, the word “NOT” was missing in the second to the last paragraph of our earlier press release in respect of an ongoing investigation regarding Student Loan Scheme.”
“The missing word created an erroneous impression that the alleged discrepancies or diversion has been established.”
“We admit that this is not the case, indeed we accept that the same part of the sentence also contradicted the whole paragraph.”
“The impression of diversion and the issue of discrepancies do not exist at this stage; the investigation would have to move into the receiving institutions and persons before any reasonable deductions could be made.”
