States still owe us N2bn, says WAEC

The West African Examinations Council on Wednesday said that the council was still being owed N2bn registration fees by state governments for their candidates who sat for the 2015 May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination.

WAEC’s Head of National Office, Dr. Charles Eguridu, gave the figure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos.

NAN reports that WAEC had withheld the results of candidates from some states who had failed to settle the registration fees of their students amounting to N4bn.

However, the council rescinded its decision after the intervention of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.

According to Eguridu, there is the need for the indebted state governments to pay up, saying that the debt, is hindering its operations.

“I want to state that about N2bn out of the over N4bn owed the council by some state governments was still outstanding.

“No fewer than 14 states so far have responded to this; but I think the response should be better. This is seriously affecting our operations.

“We had entered into a gentleman’s Memorandum of Understanding with the concerned state governments because we found out that they are equally trying to give education to Nigerian children.

“And if they approach us, based on that, there is need for us to oblige them,” he said.

He said so far the ongoing November/December diet of its General Certificate of Education for private candidates had been hitch-free with no any major incident recorded.

“The only little challenge we had was the coinciding of some of our examination schedule with the time of prayer of our Muslim candidates, and this has been immediately taken care of.

“And so, for now, everything is moving on fine,’’ he said.