The Oyo State government has refuted claims that it has not accessed the year 2020/2021 N715 million counterpart funds for Universal Basic Education Commission/SUBEB Intervention Projects.
The denial was a reaction, in Ibadan, to allegations that the state government has failed to pay its counterpart fund to access the projects.
Affirming that the state has in fact paid counterpart funds for 2020 and 2021 intervention projects to UBEC, the Executive Chairman, Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board, OyoSUBEB, Dr. Nureni Adeniran, said that the responsive administration of Governor Seyi Makinde has been faithful to the release of funds for the basic education sub-sector, in order to attend to the growing number of children in the state’s primary schools.
Dr. Adeniran maintained that the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, is essentially in receipt of the counterpart grant paid by the state government for years 2020 and 2021.
He said, “We equally have evidence of the payment and lodgement of the money.
“Oyo State does not belong to the categories of states that failed to pay counterpart funds to access UBEC matching grants as being erroneously peddled in the above news item.”
Stressing that the Federal Government agency has done due diligence, after the receipt of the counterpart funds and Action Plans for the projects, Dr Adeniran also maintained that UBEC has sent its team of experts to carry out verification exercise on all the proposed construction/renovation as well as the school furniture and boreholes to be sunk.
He added, “They have completed the exercise and submitted their report. There is no doubt that the matching grants will be released to the state any moment from now because UBEC is at the final stage of the exercise.”
A statement released by the media team of OyoSUBEB further said that “UBEC grants are recurring annual federal educational grants to state governments, accessed after payment of specified matching counterpart funds. Despite the huge amounts normally required as a counterpart fund, the Oyo State government under Governor Seyi Makinde has not failed in releasing its part of the funds.”
Adeniran therefore, advised journalists and online bloggers to clarify stories from the right quarters before publishing same, and not mislead the public, saying that the state government’s claims can be confirmed from the UBEC headquarters in Abuja.
