In a frantic effort to effect absolute utilisation of the N34 billion Universal Basic Education (UBE) fund, the governors of the 36 states of the federation are poised to raise the issue at the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting scheduled to hold today.
The meeting, which holds in the morning at the presidential villa, Abuja, LEADERSHIP gathered, would, apart from discussing the fate of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) fund, deliberate on issues pertaining to the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).
?
?
The governors had last week stood their ground against federal government’s position when the Minister of Finance, ?Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, ?met with them over the matter.
Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, who gave the hint after a NEC sub-committee meeting yesterday, ?noted that today’s meeting is coming sequel to yesterday’s sub-committee meeting to look at the alternative sources and make recommendations to the governors.
To qualify for the grant as contained in the UBE Act, such state shall contribute not less than 50 per cent of the total cost of projects as its commitment in the execution of the project.
?
?
He said while the governors were bent on raising their own share, it was part of the deliberation of the sub-committee which was ?working on alternative source of raising the fund.
This, he said, became necessary since governors were committed towards providing education to Nigerian children.
The matter had become an uphill task for most of the states which had not been able to access the fund largely due to their inability to come up with the matching fund on the premise that they could not afford it.
?
?
Nyako added that the governors would leave no stone unturned in making their own counterpart fund handy ?to fully utilise the grant which accrue to the states as additional aid.
Spurning report that some governors wanted waiver, he said that since the money was “coming as an assistance” , it was not something they could convince the federal government to forget about.
The governors had since commenced work on how to get the needed matching grant to meet the counterpart funds, which was ?one of the pre-conditions for accessing the fund.
?