Dappa Maharajah
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GOVERNOR Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) has approved the backlog payment of Ondo State Oil Producing Development Commission (OSOPADEC) to 5, 237 beneficiaries for the 2014/2015 academic year.
The Polity learnt that over N221 million was approved by the governor on Monday, while payment arrangements are ongoing to disburse the bursary to the beneficiaries.Meanwhile, the OSOPADEC Chairman, Mr. Gbenga Edema, raised an alarm over “padding” in the names of students and beneficiaries sent to the commission by many tertiary institutions for the payment of bursary and scholarship.
The OSOPADEC Chairman, who disclosed this during a media chat with journalists in Akure recently, describing it as a cankerworm destroying all sectors of the nation.Aside the “padding” in the commission, he stated that the 40 per cent of the 13 per cent derivation fund accrued to the state will be judiciously utilized for wholesome development.
Edema lamented the breach of trust and lack of integrity in many of the Nigerian institutions, which he said, cashed on every slight opportunity to tamper with the list of Ondo indigenes in their schools for pecuniary and selfish reasons.
“For instance, you apply to a school to give the list of all the Ondo students, one should expect that that university and institution should have integrity that whatever document you get from such institution should have high level of integrity. Unfortunately, you will see that such document would have been padded.
“The universities cannot defend the integrity of the documents they give to us. They will now put indigenes who are not from these local governments, who probably have semblance of names similar to those council areas. There is no way the commission can know everybody from the area,” he said.Edema preached that there is need for collective efforts by the general public, commission and tertiary institutions, saying “We should be able to depend absolutely on the information given to us by the tertiary institution. It is quite unfortunate that many of our higher institutions are guilty.
However, he pointed out that the BVN mechanism and collaboration with local government authorities to only give documents to indigenes will go a long way to check all the excesses and corrupt practices in the system.
Aside offsetting the Ondo State workers and pensioners’ salary arrears, the state government has also reiterated its determination to settle all the backlogs of students’ bursaries and scholarships, which predated 2014/2015 academic calendar.
In the recent past, Ondo indigenes in the tertiary institution always protests at the commission and Governors Office over non payment of their bursary allowances and scholarship entitlements.But Edema explained that in the immediate past administration of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, “the screening, clearing and all administrative work that needed to be done in respect of the 2014/2014 bursary year had been done, they were waiting for the governor’s approval to pay; unfortunately the approval never came.”
Nevertheless, he noted that the new administration has stepped up efforts to meet with the student unions and Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) for the speedy payment of the outstanding entitlements for the state students to complement their education.
“I am very optimistic that before the end of the week, he will probably append his signature; and when that is done, the process of payment will commence,” he said, assuring those who had graduated that “it doesn’t matter, they were students by the time they applied.
“We are dealing with documents, except it can be shown that they were no longer students when they applied. Since we were dealing with 2014/2015 academic year, which ought to have been paid two years ago,” he said.
