The Nation Newspaper

Tag: publish

  • JAMB set to publish names of highly-placed Nigerians involved in exam fraud

    The Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, yesterday said the outcome of its probe into examination fraud between 2009 and 2019 will shock many Nigerians.

    He said the board has discovered that some prominent Nigerians occupying high positions in the society did not sit its examination by themselves.

    Prof. Oloyede said although the board may not be able to punish the culprits because they have already left the system, it would go ahead to publish their names in order to shame them.

    The JAMB Registrar said these yesterday while speaking at the 23rd annual seminar of the Nigerian Academy of Education under the topic, “Admissions into tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria.”

    He also said the board has hired a Senior Advocate of Nigeria to conduct the prosecution of more than 100 persons caught in various malpractices during the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) which held between April 11 and 18, and who were arrested by security operatives across the country.

    The registrar did not name the SAN leading the prosecution of the errant UTME candidates and professional examination fraudsters.

    He also did not state the day the 2019 UTME results would be released.

    Oloyede said the board was amused by insinuation that its server had crashed. Such comments, he said, were amusing to members of the board.

    The registrar said: “If I were to be punishing every staff of JAMB that is committing infractions, I will not focus on the assignment. I will be going from one disciplinary committee to the other and my attention will be diverted.

    “And that is why I go for the shortest route: once you are caught to have committed one infraction, you will not be assigned with examination duties again. It is a privilege, which I can withdraw.

    “If you are that bad that I don’t want to see your face around me, I will transfer you to another place.

    Read also: JAMB urges candidates to guard registration details, profile code

    “If we have to take disciplinary action against all of them, look at it, today, we have not less than 100 people in police cells across the country who were caught for examination malpractices.

    “I have appointed a Senior Advocate of Nigeria who is a former Solicitor-General to help me oversee all these so that the suspects can be brought to book.

    “And my Director of Legal asked me, what offences should we charge these people for; for multiple registration? And I said, why can’t we go to the Examination Malpractice Act?

    “So, my problem has started with having to draft the charges, despite the fact that we have evidence against them. That is the beginning of the problem.

    “I will now ask to be paying my staff to travel out of Abuja to be testifying in court as they are adjourning month after month the cases, and we will be wasting money and time on transport.

    “So even now, what we have seen, I tell people that I am more tolerant of corruption in JAMB than when I was as a vice-chancellor at the University of Ilorin.”

    He added that the board has de-listed no fewer than 76 Computer-Based Test Centres for various infractions in the recently concluded unified tertiary matriculation examination.

  • Publish vehicles charges, importers urge Customs

    How much does it cost to clear a vehicle at the ports? This is the question terminal operators, importers and Nigerians in Diaspora are demanding an answer to from the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

    They have asked the Customs Comptroller-General (CCG), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), to publish the cost in newspapers and on the website.

    The measure, they said, would end excessive human traffic and corruption at the ports.

    Customs, importers said, must collaborate with operators and shipping firms to arrive at a uniform tariff to reduce human contact and boost efficiency at the ports.

    They noted that the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), among others, should display their charges on their portals.

    The publication, they said, would help the Federal Government to plug revenue leakages and make Nigerian ports the leading ones in West and Central Africa.

    An importer, Mr. Festus Akande, said no one could predict what importers would pay when they bring goods to the ports. He urged the government to address the problem to improve service delivery and generate more revenue.

    The ports, he said, were competing with others in the sub-region, fueling the need to make charges public.

    Akande urged the NPA management to design a plan for a model terminal to promote competition, boost efficiency and make the ports attractive. He noted that in the last 10 years, the NPA operated the landlord model of port operation without the much-needed competition among private operators.

    “Nigeria loses cargoes to ports of neighbouring countries because many importers don’t know the actual amount they are going to pay when they bring their goods to the ports.

    “The era of imposing arbitrary charges that have often been described by importers, exporters and clearing agents as uncharitable will end if all the agencies and the operators are mandated by the Federal Government to make their charges public.

    “NPA as the landlord must check excessive charges against importers to reduce prices of imported goods and make the ports competitive and attractive for business.

    “We want Customs and agencies operating in the ports which include the NPA, the  Plant Quarantine, NIMASA, and others to up their game,” Akande said.

    A senior official of one of the terminals in Lagos, who craved anonymity, bemoaned high rate of human interface in Customs offices at the ports and urged Col Ali to address the issue.

    When The Nation visited the Apapa port, clearing agents were everywhere, moving with their files from one office to another for most of the businesses that can be transacted online without leaving the comfort of their offices for the port.

    Col. Ali, importers said, must curb the excesses of his men and ensure the adoption of a duty benchmark on fairly used vehicles, popularlly called Tokunbo.

    “For years, the Customs has operated without a benchmark for used vehicles. The agency fixes duty at will, depending on who is importing.

    “Some officers are exploiting the absence of a clear-cut policy on benchmark to extort importers and their agents, despite Ali’s warnings against corruption.

    “For selfish reasons, some Customs officers are also working against making the ports attractive for business. Therefore, the Federal Government needs to design anti-corruption policies that will stem the loss of cargoes from Nigeria to neighbouring countries.

    “The absence of a benchmark has created opportunities for Customs officials to take bribes from importers and their clearing agents.

    “Despite the age limit imposed on imported Tokunbo vehicles, it is sad that no Nigerian bringing any type of the approved vehicle into the country knows the actual amount he or she is going to pay as Customs duty.

    “But the situation is not so in our neighbouring ports. At Apapa and Tin Can ports, direct interaction between clearing agents and Customs officials is high since most clearing documentation on used vehicles are not processed online,” the source said.Clearance documentations, according to the source, are submitted physically.

    The source continued: “This high level of corruption in our ports will affect the efforts of the current management of NPA to reposition the ports for better efficiency and the hub in the sub-region. Corrupt practices are also jeopardising the ability of the NSC to secure commercial opportunities in cargo transport to nearby landlocked countries.

    “Despite the successful ports concession programme, the concession benefit is hampered by corruption, poor infrastructure and the high cost of doing business.”

    The source blamed  the ports’ bureaucracy for the problem, saying: “The bribery takes two forms, for example: Collusive corruption,1 where the clearing agents and Customs officials benefit from an illicit deal, such as paying to evade duty, and coercive bribery or extortion, which benefit only corrupt Customs official.”

  • BEDC to publish supply schedule

    Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) Plc is to publish power availability schedule for customers in its franchise areas of Edo and Delta states soon.

    This is coming on the heels of the prevailing electricity generation limitations affecting many Nigerians.

    Its Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mrs. Funke Osibodu, said the power availability schedule became necessary to enable customers predict when electricity would be supplied or interrupted and restored and, thus, enable them plan their activities.

    She said: “It has become necessary to undertake programming for customers of BEDC in order to improve our services to them. They, however, should note that load shedding time may sometimes vary due to changes in generation, technical challenges and other unforeseen events beyond our control. This will first be published for Edo and Delta states and after perfecting this, similar publication will be done for Ondo and Ekiti states.”

    Mrs. Osibodu at a media briefing in Benin, Edo state capital,  said the firm was fine-tuning the schedule, with a view to starting its implementation soon.

    According to her, the load management schedule was prepared based on the roaster submitted by each of the company’s 24 business units, while codes have been assigned to each 11KV feeder emanating from injection substations that feed specific areas in the four states.

    She said in Edo,  for instance, the BEDC was creating conducive environment for companies to grow by balancing the power given to both residential, communities and industrial locations, adding that the idea would enable industrial concerns reduce cost of production, drive economic growth and create jobs for the unemployed youths in the area.

    This, she said, is in addition to the efforts of the firm to subsidise electricity being supplied to customers in the state.

    On Concept Route Marshall, she said the initiative was borne out of the need to enhance customer relations and improve the company’s commercial field operations.

    “A route is defined as collection of customers in certain transformers in some particular route(s) which the assigned officers will be expected to manage and ensure customers on it are properly managed/served.

  • Publish N/Delta ministry probe findings

    SIR: The Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, urges the federal government to publish the findings of the technical committee set up by the Ministry of the Niger Delta Affairs that revealed the misappropriation of public funds up to the tune of N700billion, and which has culminated in a probe of the MNDA.

    The Ministry of the Niger Delta Affairs must not be seen to be a judge in the case of malfeasance already discovered from the report it sent to the Federal Executive Council, FEC. Because it is the nature of probes in Nigeria not to be thorough, inclusive and conclusive, Nigerians, and indeed Niger Deltans should be interested in knowing who the contractors who have abandoned the projects are and how much they were awarded to carry out the said abandoned projects. We believe that this would strengthen considerations and activities around the bill on whistleblowing in Nigeria.

    We recommend that the probe panel be chaired by a retired Chief Justice who would bring the full weight of his integrity and acumen to bear on the conduct of the probe of such monumental heists of public funds.

    In addition, ANEEJ calls for the inclusion of key stakeholders and relevant activists in the Niger Delta in the probe panel to ensure that their involvement adds value and credibility to the exercise.

    Apart from the prosecution of the perpetrators of those unaccounted-for funds, we implore the FEC investigation/probe to make the tracing, tracking and recovery of the stolen as a cardinal thrust of the probe so that recovered funds be deployed in the completion of either ongoing or abandoned projects in the Niger Delta. Most CSOs and NGOs working in the Niger Delta on corruption issues have networks of investigations which the government can leverage on to track perpetrators.

    ANEEJ verily believes that if the federal government involves CSOs in the tracing, tracking and prosecution of individuals and organizations involved in the heists of funds for development in the Niger Delta, the narrative around abandoned projects in the Niger Delta would change.

     

    • Rev David Ugolor,

    ANEEJ, Benin City.

  • Publish states’ July allocation

    SIR: I refer to the July 2016 allocation to all the states of federation which we heard was huge enough to pay so many months salary.

    Ironically, some governors have been deceiving their people about the status of the allocation in order not to pay more than one month out of about seven months being owed to workers. I want to say that Ondo State in particular  has gone on air to deny that she collected more than N9billion in July. Ondo State government has not paid workers this year at all. Even when the state resolved to pay workers one month during the strike action, only few workers benefited. We believe that the action of the governor is to continued to punish workers for voting President Buhari in the 2015 election. Workers are dying in Ondo State now after seven months of staying without salary.

    I therefore appeal to President Buhari to direct Federal Ministry of Finance to publish state allocation on the pages of newspaper from January to date to allow us know who is deceiving who.

    Honestly, state governors have resolved to kill all of us by collecting allocation on monthly basis from the Federal Government without paying workers, but spend the money on elephant projects.

     

    • Mrs. Kunbi Emaye,

    Okitipupa, Ondo State.

  • Stanbic IBTC to publish list of loan defaulters

    Stanbic IBTC to publish list of loan defaulters

    Stanbic IBTC said yesterday it will publish the list of loan defaulters in line with a new directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    Stanbic IBTC would be among the first banks to publish such a list after the regulator ordered lenders in April to crack down on non-performing loans to forestall a repeat of a 2009 industry bailout that cost the government $4 billion.

    The new plan requires banks to give bad debtors three months to square their accounts, following which they would be named in the media and barred from taking part in currency and government debt markets in Africa’s biggest economy.

    Stanbic said in a statement that in addition to publishing a list of defaulters by the end of August, it would also use legal and other means to recover non-performing loans.

    While issuing its order, the central bank did not give an estimate of the level of non-performing loans held by banks. In 2009, the central bank rescued several banks that had lent mainly to the oil and gas sector just before crude prices collapsed, triggering a near-collapse of eight commercial banks.