JAMB, NIMASA set examples for other government agencies to follow
Disparities in the remittances made into the Federal Government’s coffers by two of its agencies justified government’s decision to probe the activities of some of these agencies in the past few years. The two agencies are the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA). The former remitted more than N5 billion this year, with an assurance by the Minister of Education that it would soon remit another N3 billion, to bring its total remittance to N8 billion. The latter, on the other hand, remitted within one year and one month N9.975 billion and $38.2 million to the consolidated revenue fund.
It is instructive that this is the first time that JAMB would remit such an amount to the government in its 40 years of existence. The highest remittance the board ever made was N3 million. NIMASA’s remittance, again, was a quantum leap under the leadership of Dakuku Peterside from the N4.95 billion that it turned into the government’s coffers in 2015.
Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, made these disclosures while briefing State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting penultimate Wednesday. According to the minister, “We also reported on the progress made by a number of our agencies some of whom have reported very significant increases in the amount paid into the consolidated revenue fund.

“Council discussed JAMB which recorded significant progress and NIMASA as well as others and gave us the charge to really go and look at these agencies, look in some cases the past management of those agencies and see where those agencies were leaking and to encourage agencies that haven’t done so to continue with efficiencies”.
Adeosun was effusive in describing JAMB’s achievement in this regard under Professor Ishaq Oloyede and this should be expected. JAMB and NIMASA had before now acquired notoriety for the bad and the ugly, especially in their primary responsibilities. For JAMB, conduct of its examinations have been awful. Indeed, very few Nigerians would have expected that anything good could ever come from the board.
On JAMB, Adeosun continued: “The highest amount that JAMB has ever remitted to the consolidated revenue fund before this management was N3 million. This year so far they have done N5 billion and the minister of education reported that they have additional N3 billion that they are ready to remit which will take this year’s figure alone to N8 billion.”
The first question that comes into mind with this remittance by the board is whether it has reviewed upwards its fees. It has not. “Now they have not increased their charges nor their fees”, the minister said. Naturally, therefore, “the question that council members were asking was that where were all these monies before? So the directive was given that we must call those who were the heads of those agencies and similar ones to account and that is what we intend to do,” she added.
The Treasury Single Account (TSA) introduced by the Muhammadu Buhari administration might have contributed to this development; but that alone cannot explain the progress in the remittances made by these two agencies. Obviously, the credit should go to the chief executives in these two organisations – Professor Oloyede, JAMB’s registrar and Dr. Peterside, director-general of NIMASA. They have both demonstrated the needed fiscal discipline required in a time like this when all hands must be on deck to save every dime for the government.
We support the government’s decision to look into the activities of these agencies and indeed others in the past few years. It is important to know whether public funds had been diverted by those who managed the organisations then. If this was the case, those involved must be made to face the full wrath of the law to serve as a deterrent to public officials that may want to see government’s money as free funds to be mismanaged or pilfered.
