Affected candidates can’t upload results for admission

By Gabriel Dike

Twelve states currently owe the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) about N2 billion exam fees for the May/June 2016 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) Daily Sun has learnt.
WAEC management, during release of results for the school examination taken by over 1,544,234 candidates nationwide declined to mention the states, numbers of candidates affected and the amount owed.
Rather, WAEC Head of National Office (HNO), Mr. Olu Adenipekun said at a press briefing that state-sponsored candidates would not access their results because state governments have not paid for the examination fees.
Adenipekun made a passionate appeal to state governments owing WAEC to pay the fees promptly without delay to enable their candidates’ access results and insisted “some government states owe us although the states are not many like that of last year.’’
In 2015, management of the council kept its threat not to release results of 340,145 candidates in 13 states because governors of the affected states failed to meet up payment for their sponsored candidates in the May/June 2015 WASSCE.
Daily Sun gathered that out of the 12 states, eight are from the North, three from the South South and one from the South West and the debt is put at about N2 billion by a top official of the council.
From the statistics, no state from the South East which has always top the state performance chart owed WAEC any exam fees for the May/June 2016 WASSCE.
WAEC management, Daily Sun learnt, has refused to release results of the sponsored candidates by the 12 states in the May/June 2016 WASSCE and this is generating ripples amongst parents and the affected candidates.
The development may affect the chances of such candidates seeking admission for the 2016/2017 academic session into tertiary institutions. Niger State was the first to acknowledge it owed WAEC N438 million for the May/June 2016 WASSCE following inability of the sponsored candidates to check their results.
Investigations indicated that several candidates in the affected states are in a dilemma of how to upload their results for admission because of they can not access WAEC website.
A senior official at the Yaba headquarters of WAEC told Daily Sun that results of candidates in the 12 states would not be released until the governors, who sponsored the candidates as part of their free education policy, pay the examination fees.
‘’We learnt our lesson from the 2014 and 2015 WASSCE fee saga with the state governors.  “WAEC cannot continue to conduct school examinations on credit.
“How do we pay our examiners and invigilators? For political reasons, we will not mention or release the names of the states involved.
“The 12 states owing the council know themselves and we have appealed to them to offset the fee,” the top WAEC official stated.