Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), Akintunde Sawyerr, has said the fund will hit N20 billion loan disbursement by end of the week.
Speaking at an oversight visit by House Committee on Student Loans and Higher Education Financing in Abuja, he said the fund already disbursed N12 billion to students as loans.
He said the agency got 610, 000 applications, of which 321,000 were perused, with those approved sent to the institutions for validation.
He also said 120,000 individuals have received stipends.
“We have 610,000 we have looked at …. some of which we have approved and have sent off to institutions to do validation. Last week we approved further 52 institutions for disbursement and payment to institutions and to individuals because as you know we also pay stipend.
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“Before an individual can apply for the loan they have to register. We have just over 400,000 registrations. The registration process simply say I am here and these are all my validation checks. It stops short of them actually applying for the loan itself.
“Exposure in terms of what we have disbursed is about 12 billion. I believe we are going to be doing some further disbursements this week which will take that number to about 20 billion. We have something in the region of 120,000 people who have actually received stipends or about to.”
Chairman of the committee, Gboyega Isiaka, commended NELFUND’s efforts.
He said the agency’s progress and statistics are satisfactory, noting areas for improvement and pledged the committee’s support and oversight.
Isiaka praised the loan initiative by the Presidency.
He said there is need for more sensitisation, particularly in the South, where applications are lower than expected.
By Nicholas Kalu, @TheNation
