Private Sector Asks FG To Account For $20m Safe School Fund Contributed In 2014

By Tony Udoka (Insidebusiness.ng)

The day of reckoning came Tuesday as the Organised Private Sector (OPS) sought for the details of the $20 million donated in 2014 for the Safe Schools Initiative in Nigeria as the federal government again rallies for support to return to school, the 13 million children that are currently out of school.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan had in 2014 committed a $10 million government fund in addition to another $10 million from business leaders in the private sector to support the Safe Schools Initiative in Nigeria which was launched by Nigerian business leaders through the Global Business Coalition for Education, a World at School and the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown.

The Initiative was to ensure that schools are protected and safe for children and youth to learn and that it was part of efforts to curtail a repeat of the kidnap of the 276 schoolgirls in Chibok.

Six years in 2020 after the donation, Nigeria currently faces a socio-economic crisis borne out of an education crisis due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis and insecurity which had devastating effects on the sector and which a study noted that it might have lost $10 million in future incomes to the pandemic that forced children out of schools for five months. The over 13 million children being out of school is the highest rate of out of school children in the world.

The study shows that if the trends continue, it predicted that half of all young people will not have the skills necessary for entry-level employment, reducing the country’s workforce and moving the countries back into poverty.

Nigeria currently faces a socio-economic crisis borne out of an education crisis due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and

These ‘out of school children are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse and critically, are ‘fundamentally ill-equipped’ to positively contribute productively to the economy. The situation is critical especially with recent studies that show only 20 per cent of children in the North East of Nigeria who complete primary school can read.

Chairman, Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Asue Ighodalo who stated that the private sector has always been supportive of government policies and activities, sought the application of the $20 million that was previously contributed for the purpose which the government is again asking for money.

He spoke at a high-level dialogue in Abuja titled: “Financing Safe Schools: Creating Safe Learning Communities.” and demanded that the government need to furnish the contributors with the details of the expenditure. of the previously contributed $20 million.

The NESG Chairmain, who was on a panel session at the programme stated that “In 2014, there was a fund established for this process of safe schools. I think that after a while, things kind of split out; there was a private sector initiative and I think we need to go back there and revisit these funds and see where it is and see how we can get a lot more contributions. I think in all of these, funding is required to support safety in schools,” Ighodalo said.

He said fencing the schools would go a long way to curb the threat, but insisted that “funding is crucial in addition to tracking technologies in school like drones that could gather intelligence, observe and provide information to the security agencies was vital in the fight to secure schools.

“All of this technological support and help to provide a strong security base can be funded and the private sector can galvanise funding.”

Apart from probing the whereabouts of the funds, Ighodalo also accused the Federal Government of over-regulating the country’s business environment and scaring away investors from the country.

“The economy of Nigeria is over-regulated. The over-regulation of the economy of Nigeria and private sector participation affects investments. We have to go back to the basics. We need to encourage and attract investment into the country.

“We need to do a lot more to create an enabling environment. If businesses don’t feel welcome, if businesses are not supported, they will go elsewhere and they won’t stay here.

“If we don’t support business, you don’t support Small and Medium Enterprises, then jobs will not be created. The environment of investment must be attractive and encouraging,” Ighodalo added.

The NESG boss said the FG needed to soften its regulations to accommodate private sector influx in the country’s business amidst the rising unemployment in the country and the high insecurity that has put the federal government in a dilemma.

He said for the safety of school children, the FG must tackle the twin challenges of unemployment and insecurity as they are stunting the development of the country.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed speaking at the dialogue warned that with 13 million children currently out of school in the country, Nigeria is sitting on the precipice of a socio-economic disaster and a full education crisis.

She further warned that if the Federal Government and the private sector do not collaborate to stop the current wave of systematic attacks on the fundamental rights of children to a safe learning environment, the country may not be able to maintain learning environments that are safe, secure and for children, their teachers, and school administrators.

The programme, at the behest of the Minster, aimed at initiating a process towards renewing and reimagining the government’s commitment to maintaining learning environments that are safe and secure.

She lamented that already, parents are increasingly more nervous about sending their children, particularly their young girls to school, with some choosing to home school their children because of insecurity.

Declaring that “the time to act is now,” she also called for a comprehensive response to the insecurity challenges facing the country which has had devastating effects on the various sectors of the economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis have posed unprecedented challenges globally and also in Nigeria.

“While we have been proactive in our response to the pandemic, and have established and are implementing the Economic Sustainability Plan and other interventions (including the scaling up of social safety net programmes, and increased investments in health and education), the pandemic has deepened insecurity across the country and resulted in an alarming spate of school attacks and mass kidnappings’, stated the Finance minister.

“These actions are a direct attack on our children’s fundamental human rights to “an education without fear of violence or attack,” as described in the Safe Schools Declaration, to which Nigeria is a signatory,” Ahmed said.

“While much progress has been made through the Safe School Initiative and other programmes, (which many of your organizations are supporting) we have a long way to go, and there is a need to re-imagine, institutionalize, and scale our Safe Schools programmes.

The Finance Minister told participants at the event that financing is critical to the successful implementation of any proposed interventions that would come out of the Dialogue.

The government recognises that to make the critical investments necessary to sustainability secure our schools and ensure a holistic and community-centred approach to Safe Schools programmes, it must address the longstanding challenge of domestic revenue mobilization, which the minister said, is already ongoing through the implementation of fiscal reforms, including Finance Acts 2019 and 2020.

Furthermore, the Minister said the current administration is working to develop the second phase of the Strategic Revenue Generation Initiatives, a multiagency programme originally launched in 2019 , with prioritized initiatives across three thematic areas.

The three areas are achieving sustainability in reven ue generation, identifying new and enhancing enforcement of existing revenue streams; and achieving cohesion in the revenue ecosystem.

As part of this initiative, she said the Ministry of Finance is also exploring how to make revenue administration processes more efficient, recognizing resource constraints particularly post COVID-19.

Even with these efforts, she lamented that the country’s fiscal space remains constrained with the COVID-19 response having required increased borrowing in Nigeria, as it has in other countries across the Globe.

She said it has become imperative that the government works collaboratively with the private sector and international development partners to develop funding strategies to drive the creation of safe educational environments.