Some States Still Owe Us N2bn – WAEC

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), yesterday, said that the council was still being owed N2 billion registration fees by state governments for their candidates who sat for the 2015 May/June WASSCE.

WAEC’s Head of National Office (HNO), Dr Charles Eguridu, gave the figure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos States.

NAN reported that WAEC had withheld the results of candidates from some states who had failed to settle the registration fees of their students amounting to N4 billion.

However, the council rescinded its decision after the intervention of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.

According to him, there is the need for the indebted state governments to pay up, saying that the debt was hindering its operations.

“I want to state that about N2 billion out of the over N4 billion owed the council by some state governments was still outstanding. No fewer than 14 states so far have responded to this, but I think the response should be better. This is seriously affecting our operations.

“We had entered into a gentleman’s Memorandum of Understanding with the concerned state governments because we found out that they are equally trying to give education to children.

“And if they approach us, based on that, there is need for us to oblige them,” he said.

He said so far, the ongoing November/December diet of its GCE for private candidates had been hitch-free.

“The only little challenge we had was the coinciding of some of our examination schedule with the time of prayer of our Muslim candidates, and this has been immediately taken care of.

“And so, for now, everything is moving on fine,” he assured.