The Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), Dr Akintunde Sawyerr, on Tuesday, said the agency has disbursed N11billion as loans to 90,000 students in six months.
Sawyerr disclosed this during an oversight visit by the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND led by its chairman Senator Muntari Dandutse, in Abuja.
He said that fees and stipends for over 90,000 students have been paid.
He said: “Three hundred students have been deemed to qualify for the loans. The gap between those that have qualified and those in benefit of the loan is that we have to go through a rigorous process to ensure we are not giving money to the wrong people.”
Sawyerr said that from the N96 billion earmarked for students’ loans, about N11 billion has been disbursed to the 90, 000 students across the country.
He said: “That figure, N96 billion, is the loan committed to. It’s not the disbursed figure. We have disbursed just below N11 billion.
“The rest of it is going to be disbursed over the next few weeks to students until it gets to that 96 billion.”
He noted that the loan was in two categories; the Institutional Loan and the Upkeep Loan adding that students don’t have to apply for either loan.
“They don’t have to apply for either loan. However, they can only apply for the upkeep loan if they have applied for the institutional loan and received it.
“The institutional loan is the primary loan that allows them to access education.
“Once they have accessed that loan and they get that, they can also get the upkeep but they can’t get the upkeep on its own because upkeep is tied to going to school”.
Sawyerr said that the agency was determined to change the lives of students through the Renewed Hope mandate of President Bola Tinubu-led administration.
He said that in terms of the geo-political zones’ spread of the disbursement, 12 per cent of students from the North-central have benefited from the facility.
“The North-east, 26 per cent have benefited; the North-west, 38 per cent; South-east, about 10 per cent; South-south, about 4 per cent and the South-west, 13 per cent.
“These numbers have doubled since we’ve been there. So, we are monitoring it month by month,” Sawyerr said.
On the loan repayment modalities, Sawyerr said that it has been made very easy in that the programme is not a profit-making activity for the Fund.
“This is a profit-making activity for the nation. Therefore, we have tried to put in soft terms, so that people will not be discouraged from going to school”.
He said that the repayment was for two years after the mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) if they have a job.
“The onus is on the employer to pay on their behalf or to take money from their salaries”.