Min. Alausa demands urgent release of feeding funds for unity colleges

...Education ministry proposes decentralisation of fund approvals

The Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has appealed to the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) to promptly release funds earmarked for student feeding in Nigeria’s unity colleges and to enhance financial efficiency across the ministry.

Dr Alausa made the appeal on Wednesday in Abuja while receiving the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr Shamsudeen Ogunjimi, during an official visit.

He revealed that the ministry last received overhead allocations in March, while the most recent disbursement for feeding in unity schools was in April. He said the delay has left the institutions struggling to meet basic obligations.

“We’re going through a rough patch. Principals are under pressure from contractors who are blackmailing them over unpaid contracts,” Alausa said.

He further disclosed that the ministry was forced to delay resumption in some unity colleges over concerns about inadequate food supply. The affected schools, he added, are now operating under considerable financial strain.

To address the issue, the minister called on the OAGF to expedite the release of funds and adopt a quarterly disbursement model to give schools greater budgetary certainty.

Dr Alausa also recommended the decentralisation of financial approvals to ease administrative delays. Under his proposal: Transactions below ₦500 million should be approved at the ministry level; Transactions below ₦100 million should be processed directly by relevant agencies.

“You’re dealing with a country of over 220 million people. It makes no sense for all payments, even as low as ₦1 million, to pass through your office,” he said.

In response, Mr Ogunjimi acknowledged the concerns and pledged to prioritise the release of overhead and feeding allocations to the education ministry. He agreed to consider disbursing funds on a term-by-term basis, rather than monthly, and asked the ministry’s Director of Finance to submit a formal proposal.

“We will prioritise releases to the Ministry of Education, even if others are experiencing delays due to fiscal constraints,” Ogunjimi assured.

He explained that the bottom-up cash management system, introduced to facilitate quicker budget implementation following National Assembly approval, had been strained by Nigeria’s growing fiscal deficit.

The Accountant General also pointed to the overwhelming volume of uploads from Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), saying that decentralising low-value contracts would help alleviate administrative congestion.

“Our capacity is overstretched. Most of these small-value contracts can be handled by the MDAs without overloading our servers,” he noted.

Ogunjimi added that the Minister of Finance has constituted a high-level committee to review the current cash management framework, with reforms expected in the coming weeks to streamline budget execution and improve efficiency.