WHY WE WITHHELD WASCCE RESULTS IN 13 STATES - WAEC REVEALS

The West African Examinations Council has
made a revelation on why it is holding to some
results.
The council has said that it will continue to hold
on to the 2016 West African Senior School
Certificate Examination results of candidates in
13 states until the backlog of WASSCE fees
owed by the affected state governments is paid.
According to The Punch, the council has also
expressed dismay at what it described as the
nonchalant attitude of the state governments to
honour the agreement reached by both parties in
the wake of the examination, saying that it
signalled a ‘symptom of bigger problems.’
The Public Relations Officer of the council, Mr.
Demianus Ojijeogu, said this on Wednesday in a
telephone interview with The Punch.
The official, who declined to name the debtor
states said that the total sum of money owed
WAEC amounts to more than N2bn, with one
state owing N500m.
He added that eight of the debtor states were
from the north, while three and two states were
from the South-South and South-West geo-
political zones of the country, respectively.
Alleging that some states owed the council since
2014, Ojijeogu noted that an agreement was
reached early this year for the debtor states to
pay 40 per cent of the total cost of the 2016
examination as a requirement for their pupils to
sit for the examination.
“They reneged on the agreement we had during
registration. We agreed that they should pay 40
per cent of the registration cost and pay the rest
later. We used the payment to offset the backlog
because some of them have owed us since 2014.
“We even told them to give us Advance Payment
Guaranty from reputable banks, but one of the
states brought a document from a branch of a
commercial bank, not even from the
headquarters of the bank. We were lenient last
year and we released the results. But, if you
leave it to some of them, they will not pay for
five or 10 years. We will not do that this year.
That is our leverage and we cannot go bankrupt
because of them,’’ he said.






Sourced and edited by DANIEL IKECHUKWU EKWUNIFE (08066298797)