Group faults fee racketeering in FCT schools

Some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have alleged that fee racketeering in public secondary schools in the Federal Capital Territory has become a common phenomenon.

They also faulted explanations given by the Chairman of Federal Capital Territory’s Secondary Education Board (FCT SEB), Alhaji Yahaya Musa Mohammed, that nothing of such is ongoing.

Both the Initiative for Citizens Rights, Accountability and Development (ICRAD) and Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEA) said the explanation by Mohammed on the mandatory N1,500 fee imposed on students have raised more questions than answers.

The groups expressed their grievances during a chat with newsmen in Abuja at the weekend.

It will be recalled that ICRAD had in a petition addressed to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) urged the anti-graft agency to probe the “illegal imposition of a “mandatory, unauthorized and illegal payment of N1,500 PTA levy” per annum on all students in JS 3, SS 1, SS 2 & SS 3 in the FCT by the FCT Board.

The group stated that the fee foisted on indigent students and their poor parents run contrary to legal enactments such as the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act, relevant Public Procurement Laws ( the Public Procurement Act) as well as the Treasury Single Account (TSA) Regulations which are extant laws that ordinarily ought to govern such levy, its collection and/or expenditure – if it was actually deemed necessary and fair to be imposed in the first place.

Following the outrage that greeted the imposition of the fee, the FCT SEB chairman, who was on a ‘WE 106.3 FM Radio’, Abuja’s programme a few days ago, claimed that the money was agreed by schools Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) to ensure online classes as a result of COVID-19.

But listeners to the programme were particularly miffed and descended hard on the SEB boss when he said that the “N1,500 levy is a paltry sum for which parents should not complain or make a fuss about.”

Reacting to the development, the FCT focal person of the Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEA), Abdulahi Saleh, vehemently condemned the statement by the SEB Chairman, saying it was completely out of touch with the economic realities and plight of parents who send their children/wards to public schools.

“You, see, that’s where I have a problem with public office holders like Alhaji Mohammed because I had a child in a public school in the FCT and when I went there for PTA meetings I realized that mostly working class people who earn meagre salaries are the ones who send their kids there,” he said.

Continuing, Mr. Saleh challenged the SEB boss, his colleagues within the Board and the FCT Education Secretariat to “go to Gwagwalada, Abaji or Bwari where majority of people that live in such communities are into farming. Now this is the farming season and they are in their farms with no other sources of income. How do you equate them with people that live in the city? What percentage of people that live in the FCT especially in the suburbs are workers with regular sources of income for you to say that N1,500 is nothing”?

Apparently, trying to establish a nexus or link between the controversial levy and corruption, the Civil Society warrior and CSACEA Chief suggested that there might be elite collaboration and/or manipulation of the poor, disadvantaged, disempowered and downtrodden parents in the FCT when he said that “when I go for PTA meetings, few people who drive big cars make decisions on behalf of the vast majority of parents who are mostly poor”.

Mr. Saleh, while condemning the statement by Mohammed to the effect that the amount levied was too paltry an amount for people to complain about, stated that “corruption is the bane of all the efforts geared towards stemming the out of school children menace in the country.”

The civil society groups have vowed to explore every available legal channel to expose the corruption and filth behind the illegally imposed fees on the already impoverished, long-suffering parents of indigent students in the capital city.

(Daily Independent)