Gom Mirian
The House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education has asked the management of Zenith Bank to appear before it to explain issues surrounding non-remittence of N4.2 billion naira generated from sales of forms for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
The dispute between JAMB and Zenith Bank centres on past transactions, including an alleged debt of N497 million owed by JAMB to the bank and a forensic audit revealing that the bank was expected to have remitted N4.2 billion from the sales of registration forms before 2017.
The committee, in a meeting with all parties involved in the dispute on Wednesday, directed JAMB to submit the forensic audit report related to the N4.2 billion owed by Zenith Bank.
It also requested JAMB to provide the committee with a list of tertiary institutions involved in irregular or illegal admissions nationwide, as well as the exam body’s past recruitment records.
In response to enquiries by the lawmakers, JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, said there were discrepancies in his agency’s account, attributing them to transaction charges not recorded by the Accountant General’s 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,” Prof. Oloyede stated.
He emphasised the necessity of reconciliation to address these discrepancies and clarified that JAMB has been remitting funds to the Federal Government’s account since 2017, despite not receiving allocations for capital projects and overhead from the national budget.
The representative of the Accountant General of the Federation, Anum Lucy, in her presentation to the committee, revealed that JAMB initiated its yearly remittances to the Federal Government’s account with N7.8 billion in 2017.
