attributes delay to late release of capital voteNigerian scholars abroad will soon heave a sigh of relieve as the Federal Government has assured that it is working to correct hitches that may have hindered the release of N400 million allowance meant for its scholars abroad (Nigerian students on advanced studies outside the country).
Hindatu Abdulahi, director of tertiary education, Federal Ministry of Education, who doubles as the acting permanent secretary in the ministry, said late release of the capital vote had formed a major stumbling block in attending to Nigerian scholars abroad, assuring that discussion was in advanced stage with the Ministry of Finance.
Abdulahi, in an interview with some journalists in Abuja, clarified that the late release was as a result of late release of capital votes by the Federal Ministry of Finance, while assuring that the Federal Government was set to send their allowance to them through its missions abroad.
She said: “Every year, the Federal Government send the upkeep allowances of Nigerians who are on federal scholarship outside the country. Every year that amount of money is released to the Federal Scholarship, then the board would now pay it to the central bank and the central bank would now release same according to information from the Federal Ministry of Education to the embassies, and the embassies would take the necessary step.
“Unfortunately, the capital release comes in a bit late, mostly by April, and it is affecting us greatly. That is why we found out that most of the time there is delay in the upkeep, depending on what time we have the release of funds.
“Take note that the scholarship money we pay to the scholars is not under our overhead, it is under the capital. We can only release it when the Federal Ministry of Finance releases capital allocations.
“As of now, we just had a release of N400 million, which we are working out with our sister ministry to ensure the release to Central Bank for onward remittances to the embassies.”
Although, her assurance is the latest in a row, available record shows that from January till date, none of these allowances have been paid by the Nigerian government, despite previous repeated appeals and other forms of representations to the Nigerian Embassy in Moscow and the Federal Ministry of Education in Abuja.
