The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has said it will continue its practice of remitting the operating surpluses, maintaining that it is constitutional.

The board disclosed this in a statement signed by its Head, Public Affairs, Dr. Fabian Benjamin.

“In line with extant government’s directive which was reiterated recently by the Director of Budget Office, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board would continue its practice of remitting the constitutionally-mandated proportion of its operational surpluses.

”This is a known fact that all underutilized funds by Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, should be returned to the public treasury.

“The board and public-spirited Nigerians are at a loss as to the reason for the various campaigns of calumny being mounted by some individuals who feel that these remittances should not be made,” he said.

“It might interest these arm chair critics that a direct fallout of the remittances was the decision of the Federal Government to reduce the cost of the purchase of the e-pin from N5000 to N3500, the cheapest globally.

“it is a truism in policy making that, certain trends should be observed over a period of time before policy pronouncements are made. Hence, the decision to reduce the price of application documents was contingent upon the observation that even if the price were to be slashed, the Board would be able to conduct its examination unhindered.

“In addition, it might also interest the public to know that never in the history of tertiary institutions in Nigeria have the institutions benefited from the Board’s operations as they now do. For instance, a huge chunk of these surpluses are ploughed back to the tertiary institutions through the National Tertiary Admissions Performance Merit Award and other platforms.”

The Board maintains that the cost of obtaining the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination( UTME) or the Direct Entry (DE) e-pin today is the lowest globally.

“However, the present management of the Board is determined to continue on the path of giving value for money even as it continues to seek ways of further pruning down the cost of conducting the Board’s flagship examination.

“In essence, once these innovative measures which have led to these surpluses are institutionalised, the Board would further look at how to further enhance the registration process to benefit the candidates and the general public the more.

“In as much as the Board is desirous of charging rock-bottom prices for its services, it is also mindful of the fact that a non-existent fee regime would only give room for abuses and confusion as unscrupulous or other unserious elements who had ulterior motives for obtaining the forms would want to obtain them to explore opportunities for prosecuting unacceptable acts were they to cost almost nothing.”

You recall that the board dissociated itself from collection of regularisation fund .