UTME: Agents have no reason to extort candidates — Oloyede

Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Prof. Isaq Oloyede, has said agents helping the board to sell personal identification number, PIN, for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, have no reason to sell above the prescribed amount.

According to him, enough provisions have been made to adequately compensate the agents.

Oloyede, who stated this in Lagos while monitoring the registration in some centres yesterday, said as at last Friday, over N300 million had been paid out to the vendors as commission.

Announcing the immediate suspension of two agents, Parkway Project and Digital Partners, for selling the PIN to applicants at rates higher than the approved N5,700, the JAMB boss said the Board would not condone extortion in any guise.

“Every agent is paid five percent of the whole amount charged, which is N5,700 and we are surprised that some are selling the PIN for N6,500 or more. That is unacceptable. Every Friday, we pay the agents their commission and as at last Friday, we have paid over N300 million to to them,” he said.

On the reduction of the number of CBTs by the Board, he explained that it would be better to have few centres helping to conduct the examination, than having large substandard number aiding malpractices.

“The reduction in the number will not in any way hinder applicants from registering for the examination. We have made provisions to register at least 100,000 candidates daily and so far the highest figure we have got for a day is about 65,000. So, we have the capacity to register over 1.8 million candidates.

“As for writing the exam, there are enough provisions for all candidates to sit for it. If peradventure, an exam does not start one hour after the scheduled time, such will be cancelled. The operators of the centre would be in contact with us and before the candidates leave the venue, another day and time for the exam would be scheduled,” he explained.     (Vanguard)