By Tayo Alabi
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has revealed plans to build a new headquarters in the Central Area of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The edifice would gulp the sum of N6bn.
The Director, Finance and Administration, JAMB, Mufutau Bello, on Thursday when he appeared before the House of Representatives committee on Public Accounts.
He said the board has been saving N2bn annually since 2018 to raise the money and commence the project.
The hearing was on audit queries issued by the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation against ministries, departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
The head office of the examination body is presently located in the Bwari, headquarters of the Bwari Area Council.
According to Bello, JAMB had realised N5.5bn so far, lamenting that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the internally generated revenue of the board in 2020.
He said, “We are proposing to move our central headquarters to the Central Area (of Abuja). We have a plan of over N6bn but since we don’t collect subvention from the government for our overhead and capital (costs), every year, from 2018, we have been setting aside N2bn because our target is N6bn to be able to acquire our headquarters in the Central Area.
“The money is in our TSA (Treasure Single Account). We had a challenge in 2020 because of COVID; so, we could not realise our budget. So far, we have realised about 5.5bn.”
The Chairman of the committee, Oluwole Oke, however, faulted the decision to keep the money idle in the account.
“You cannot keep such money idling in an account. That is poor treasury management,” he stated.
