The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board has asked the House Committee on Finance to grant it financial autonomy by removing it from the list of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies in the Federal Government’s annual budget.
This comes as JAMB has called for a reversal of the recent decrease in examination fees from N5,000 to N3,500.
The Registrar of JAMB, Ishaq Oloyede, made the appeal on Wednesday in Abuja during a public hearing on the committee’s proposed 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper.
However, Oloyede stated that there are conditions that must be met before JAMB is removed from the annual budget.
According to him, one of the conditions is that the Board should be allowed to upwardly review examination fees.
He noted that the amount charged for registration was reduced from N5, 000 to N3,500.
Oloyede said, “There is nowhere that government funds this type of examination. They provide some support for the institution because students pay some token as registration fee; and from it, they bear the responsibility of salaries and provide some succours.
“We are comfortable to be taken off the budget but there are conditions. One of the conditions, for example, when students registered in 2016, we collected N5, 000 and that had been on for five years before I joined (JAMB). When we came in, we remitted N7.5bn. We felt it was too much and approached the Federal Government to reduce the fees. We have not added a kobo since.
“I believe we should revert to the N5, 000 we were charging.”
The committee’s Deputy Chairman, Saidu Abdulahi, said the lawmakers were concerned about the impact of Oloyede’s proposal on the disposable income of Nigerians.
