“I Spent #1m Naira, Not #850m On Fumigation”- JAMB faults claims of ‘humongous spending’ on meals, fumigation, others in 2024 budget

The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Is-haq Oloyede, has expressed concerns over the misrepresentation of figures in the 2025 budget proposal presented to the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Finance on Monday.

Oloyede dismissed claims that the board spent huge amounts on fumigation, meals, among other items, in 2024, describing them as misrepresentations.

The JAMB registrar said the board’s total expenditure for fumigation across all states in 2024 was less than N1 million.

Addressing reporters yesterday in Abuja, Oloyede said: “I want to say emphatically, without any iota of doubt, that I did not present any budget performance of 2024 before the National Assembly yesterday. I think it’s a lot of misunderstanding…

“I did not talk about 2024 budget performance, and we did not spend any money, any humongous money in 2024. Indeed, what we spent on fumigation in the whole states of the federation, all offices in 2024, was not up to N1 million. And what we budgeted for 2025 for fumigation is less than N2 million.”

The JAMB boss noted that the misunderstanding arose because the detailed breakdown of the budget proposal was not fully reviewed during the presentation.

“On the succeeding page, we provided the breakdown with asterisks to call attention to it, but we did not go and read the other pages where we analysed what we were doing,” he said.

Commenting on the N6.5 billion allegedly spent on training in 2024, Oloyede said the money was a proposal for 2025 that cuts across various budget lines, including monitoring of examination, admission expenses, e-facilities payment, awards for best higher education institutions, among others.

“We have 10,500 examiners and invigilators who conduct both the mock and the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). Some of them stay for 10 days. I do not determine their DTA (Duty Tour Allowance). It’s the government that determines the DTA to be paid to them. So, what offence have I committed in putting their claims together?” he asked.

Oloyede also cleared the air on the alleged huge amount spent on meals, among others, saying: “Everybody knows that at the JAMB headquarters, we provide one lunch for those in the headquarters. And we provide this lunch for them partly because we don’t want our system to be destroyed, apart from the fact that there are security reasons for not allowing people going in and coming out…

“You also know that we have some ICT infrastructure that will be damaged if we allow people to be bringing food and remnants.

“So, we created the canteen and we provide for them, and others have become agitated. So, we are now saying for 2025, we should provide for 2,300; that is, 2,300 times 22 days, times 12 months. What will it be if not over N1 billion?”

The JAMB registrar also commented on the clamour for a downward review of the UTME fee instead of the board remitting money to federal coffers.

He said: “I think, to the best of my knowledge, I have done what I’m supposed to do. We have reduced it from N5,000 to N3,500.”