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From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education has commended the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for ensuring transparency in all its financial transactions and other activities.
The committee, chaired by Hon Oforji Oboku, gave the commendation, on Wednesday, in Abuja, at an interactive session with the management of JAMB and representative of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF).
The lawmakers, who were presented a 392-page document by JAMB, that contains audited accounts from 2019 to 2022, procurements details, budget performance, evidence of remittances, among others, expressed delight at the level of transparency exhibited by the exam body.
“I must commend the entire management of JAMB. We know what records said before they assumed office and what records is saying now. The transparency efforts of the organisation, the changes we have seen in revenue, are impressive and should be emulated by other agencies of government,” Oboku stated.
The committee, which also received a presentation of the Board’s financial records from the AGF’s representative, Anum Lucy, however, set up a “unit committee” to find out reasons for the little discrepancies observed in the financial records presented by JAMB and that of the Accountant General Office.
Responding to some of the issues raised, JAMB Registrar Professor Ishaq Oloyede likened some of the discrepancies to payments’ charges that were not recorded by the Accountant General Office.
“For example, when we paid N10, we report N10 but the portal through which the payment was made will deduct charges and record the net. While we record the gross, they are recording the net and this account for those discrepancies. That is why reconciliation is necessary,” he stated.
Oloyede, who said JAMB has been making remittances to Federal Government’s coffers since 2017, revealed that the examination body does not receive allocations for capital projects and overhead from the national budget.
“We don’t collect capital, we don’t collect overhead, if you look at the budgets of other agencies in our category, you will see they collect capital and overhead, but neither of these do we collect, despite that, we make returns from what we collected. Our own Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) is what we spend on capital projects,” he said.
Earlier in her presentation, the representative of the Accountant General of the Federation, Anum Lucy, said JAMB started its yearly remittances to Federal Government’s account with N7.8bn in 2017.
“JAMB as an organisation started remitting revenue to the coffers of the Government in 2017. In that year, it remitted N7.8bn to the coffers of government,” she stated.
“In 2018, it was N5.2bn. In 2019 it was N3.6bn. In 2020 it was N3.8bn. In 2021, it was N3.5bn and N3.1bn in 2022.”
