NELFUND’s disbursements to students hit N53bNELFUND

More than N53 billion has been disbursed by the Nigerian Student Loan Fund (NELFUND) to students in upkeep institutional fees.

A breakdown of the N53, 036,673,649.40 disbursed under the Student Loan scheme showed that the agency paid N23, 173,240.000.00 as upkeep allowance to beneficiaries and N29, 863,433,649.40 as institutional fees.

Details of the disbursement were obtained from the X handle (formerly Twitter) of NELFUND as of yesterday.

According to NELFUND, 497,717 students have applied for the loan while 561,174 have registered for the loan.

It added that 88 per cent of registrants have successfully applied for the loan.

In its projection, the agency said it hopes to disburse N112,153,680,000 as student upkeep allowance and pay N52,873,195,826 as institutional fees totalling N165,026,607,326 (N165,026,875,826 as calculated by our reporter).

Some beneficiaries of the scheme have however appealed to NELFUND for the payment of their upkeep allowances.

According to them, since they changed/updated their bank details, they have not received the upkeep allowance for close to eight months.

Responding, Director, Strategic Communications, NELFUND, Oseyemi Oluwatuyi said: “The issue with that is a bit complex. It’s a security issue.

“Anybody can come and change account details.”

What we try to do is do a lot of checks to be sure it’s safe. This is being done for the sake of the students themselves. But it will be resolved soon.”

The Student Loan scheme was launched by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on July 17 after signing the Bill on April 3, last year.

According to the law, repayment will commence two years after the completion of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme.

The ambitious programme will be funded with one per cent of the total annual collectable revenue by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

It is one of the key initiatives of the Tinubu administration.