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Management of the Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin has denied the alleged mismanagement of the institution’s cooperative societies funds.
The Acting Provost of the college, Dr Ahmed Jimoh Ayinla, who addressed a news conference in Ilorin, the state capital today Thursday, alongside all the principal management staff of the institution, said the management is owing to the co-operative societies the sum of N59,313,773.21 as against the N100m being claimed by some detractors.
He explained that his administration which came on board in 2021, inherited debts, including cooperative money deductions from the past administrations.
Ayinla said his management had spent N117m to offset some of the debts it inherited from the previous administrations in the college.
“We inherited backlog of debts ranging from that of the college cooperative, out of which N49,607,046.00 has been paid. On staff honoraria for 2019,2020,2021, electricity bills, amongst others, a total of N59,519,400.00 has been used to clear all these.
” All these and other sundry expenses amounting to N117,222,477.28 have been paid from the meagre amount available to the college. We have done all these because assets and liabilities are part of governance.
The provost said that the two-week-old strike action embarked upon by the teaching staff of the college had caused a drop in the revenue accruable to the institution.
He lamented that the present financial situation of the college had denied the college the opportunity of settling both inherited and new debts as it has been doing in the past.
“The N40million subvention by the state government to the college had dropped to N32million since January this year. That’s a shortfall of N8million. We now struggle to pay salary. Then, payment into the school account is dropping on a daily basis as no student had paid kobo since two weeks ago. The school gate is locked against the students and staff and no one is paying any kobo to the college account. This has compounded the financial problem of the school”.
Ayinla, who refuted allegations of mismanagement of funds belonging to the Cooperatives Societies of the institution, said that the college had been managing to pay the monthly check-off dues of all unions and societies from the meagre resources available to the college with the assistance of the state government.
He commended the state government for the payment of all salary arrears owed by the previous administrations, the release of funds for accreditation and prompt payment of monthly subvention.
He said that the ongoing affiliation process of the college with the University of Ilorin is at the final stage, adding that about 10 new academic programmes would be introduced to make the future of the college brighter.
The acting provost also explained that the total student population of the college is only 6,929 students as against the 15,000 students claimed by the protesting workers in their letter to the governor.
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