The Managing Director of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), Akintunde Sawyerr has revealed that at least N10 billion has so far been disbursed to 40,000 students since the commencement of the programme.
Sawyerr revealed this on Channels Television’s prime time programme, Politics Today, on Tuesday.
“It’s a loan, people need to think about it. About 89,000 of those exist,” Sawyer said.
“About 40,000 of them have been approved and we have actually disbursed to them, I think that is probably in the region of N9 to N10 billion.”
According to Sawyerr, no fewer than 370,000 students have registered on the NELFUND’s portal but all of them have been unable to apply for the loan.
The NELFUND MD added that only 280,000 of the students have gone ahead to apply for the loan.
“This leaves a number of students who have not decided as to whether or not they want to proceed and apply which is fair enough,” Sawyerr explained.
“The way we disburse the loan is that we pay the fees, and so far, we have a commitment of paying fees of about N30 billion and about N 60 billion in upkeep loan.
“So, the second tranche of this is that we pay directly to the students for upkeep – pocket money if you like.”
