Governor Akeredolu
The Ondo state government, which is headed by Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, has started charging people a fee of 1,000 Naira as part of its plan to finance the education sector.
Olusegun Agagu, the state’s commissioner for education, science, and technology, revealed this on Tuesday in Akure at the OSEEF’s official unveiling.
All “taxable adults” will be eligible to pay one thousand naira annually to the Endowment Fund, according to Mr. Agagu, which aims to raise money for enhancing the standard of education in Ondo.
He said that the government led by Mr. Akeredolu had established a 12-member Board of Trustees (BoT) under the direction of Akinsola Akinfenwa to manage and oversee the fund for the advancement of education at all levels in the state.
He stated that the State House of Assembly amended and passed the State Education Endowment Fund Law, Cap. 47 Volume II Laws of Ondo State, Nigeria, 1992 in the year 2022 and emphasized that Governor Akeredolu gave his approval.
Every taxable adult, person, and individual in the state who is 18 years of age and older is required by this amendment to pay an amount of N1,000 year (yearly) as an education levy, according to Mr. Agagu.
Mr. Agagu claimed that the state government alone cannot support education and expect a satisfactory outcome in his justification for the tax on state citizens.
He continued by saying that the effort will also enable the state government to reposition education in the state in a number of ways.
The goal of the fund was to provide a source of funding that was separate from regular government subsidies in order to modernize the Ondo state education system.
Hence, the core idea is that the fund will always exist and that everyone in Ondo state and beyond will be invited to donate to it in accordance with their means and whenever they are able to do so, he said.
Addressing, Akinsola Akinfenwa, the Board Chairman of the OSEEF, stated that given the number of schools the state required to support in addition to other industries, funding education should always be a shared duty.
He committed to encouraging all state natives, both inside and outside the state, to contribute to the Education Endowment Fund.
Tolu Adegbie, the Chairman of the Ondo State Internal Revenue Service (ODIRS), commented that with the establishment of the State Education Endowment Fund, the state aimed to raise roughly one billion naira from the populace.
In his brief statement, Mr. Adegbie stated, “We are also targeting around 1 million people paying this and that would give us about 1 billion as additional money for this fund.”
Recall that in order to increase the financing base and supplement the government budget in the area of education, Governor Akeredolu relaunched the State Education Endowment Fund in November 2018.
