The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has shed more light on its decision to budget N1.1 billion for staff meals and N850 million for fumigation in its 2025 budget proposal.
Professor Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB Registrar had on January 13, appeared before a joint committee of the national assembly to defend its 2025 budget proposal.
Lawmakers criticised its proposed spending for the fiscal year while berating its remissions to the federal treasury.
At the session, the committee raised the alarm over JAMB’s proposed budget of N1.1 billion for meals and N850m for fumigation, security, and cleaning in 2025.
The outcome of the budget proposal session has since generated scathing media reports and public outrage on JAMB’s resource usage.
Spokesman of JAMB, Fabian Benjamin,in a statement on Tuesday, said some media reports and claims by lawmakers may have also confused figures intended as 2025 proposed spending with 2024 expenditures.
“During this session, there was no presentation of any 2024 expenditure of N1.1 billion for feeding or N850 million for fumigation,” he clarified.
JAMB said the meal allowance is to feed its 2,300 staff daily in 2025, including cleaners and security personnel.
It said the initiative to feed its staff was to minimise their exposure to the public during work hours and avoid the danger that eating in the offices posed to ICT infrastructure.
The board said the cost of meals had increased due to rising food prices.
“Over the past two years, the cost of providing this meal for headquarters staff (on the 2 offices in the board) was N1,200 per day, per staff,” it said.
“However, due to rising food prices, vendors have requested an increase to N2,200 (including 13.5% taxes).
“Based on this new price, the total cost of providing meals for 2,300 staff members throughout the working days in 2025 is projected to be N1.27 billion.
“Nevertheless, JAMB has budgeted N1.1 billion for this purpose.”
JAMB further clarified that the N850million allocation for security, cleaning, and fumigation included the salaries of outsourced personnel, cleaning materials, and other operational costs.
It said only N2 million was specifically earmarked for fumigation services in 2025.
JAMB also defended its proposed expenditure of N6.4 billion for “local travel and transport”.
It stated that this category was mandated by the Budget Information Management Monitoring System (BIMMS) for government-owned enterprises.
“All capital, overhead, and operational costs of the board are met from the internally generated revenue of the board while the government covers the salaries of only pensionable JAMB staff,” JAMB added. (vitalnewsngr.com)
