26th August, 2010
West African Examination Council (WAEC) has blocked access to the result of more than 23,000 candidates from Niger, over delays in the payment of their examination fees by the state government.
An authoritative source in WAEC said in Minna that the candidates would not be allowed to access their result until the state government paid all outstanding examination fees to WAEC.
The candidates had sat for the 2010 Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination, but more than one week after the release of the results they are unable to access theirs.
The source told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the Niger Government undertook to pay the candidates’ examination fees under its free education programme, but failed to do so.
NAN gathered that out of the more than N122.36 million examination fee, the state government only paid N50 million, leaving a balance of N72.36 million unpaid.
The source noted that the examination body would only allow the students to access their results, when the balance of the payment was made to the examination body.
The Permanent Secretary in charge of secondary education in the Ministry of Education, Dr. Mahmud Mohammed confirmed the development to NAN in a telephone interview.
Mohammed, however, said the problem came about as a result of the normal transaction between the Ministry of Finance and the commercial banks handling the payment.
“We have the money to pay, after the transactions between the Finance Ministry and the banks, the money will be paid to the examination body on or before Aug. 30, he said.