KEY POINTS

• Welfare expansion, it was extended to all 2,300 staff nationwide.
• Transparency ensured, not unilaterally, but budget determined by welfare committee.
• Comprehensive budgeting, allocation included cleaning, fumigation, and security.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has defended the ₦1.1 billion proposed allocation for staff feeding in its 2025 budget criticized by the National Association of Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) and Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN).

Speaking on Tuesday at a health walk organised by JAMB in Abuja, the JAMB chapter chairman of NASU, Andrew Onakpa, said the increased allocation also underscores the extension of the free lunch programme to more than 2,300 staff spread across JAMB offices in the nation’s 44 offices.

Welfare as a priority

JAMB Registrar, Prof. Okeremem lauded Onakpa. Describing the idea as humane, and productivity boosting, Is-haq Oloyede for prioritizing staff welfare. He said the allocation is based on detailed calculations of daily feeding costs to staff over a year.

“We have more than 2,300 staff in more than 44 offices across India.” What’s not surprising is that when you work out the cost of feeding across all working days in a year, it’s understandably large. It is not mismanagement, it is about improving welfare,” Onakpa said.

Transparency and Collaboration are the backbone of the brightest idea generation.
Ashida SCSN Chair Man JAMB Branch Ebenezer Ayalibola affirms the transparency of the process adding that the agreed budgets came out of a committee, budgeted on costs of N2,200 per staff per day. This, he added, was a collective decision, not unilateral action taken by the Registrar.

“All JAMB staff will be fed for 2025, ₦1.1 billion is what we are paying as that.” Ayalibola said this includes offices across the nation, ‘so nobody is left out’”.

Over cleaning and security concerns

On the use of ₦850 million earmarked for fumigation, Ayalibola stated that that budget will cater for cleaning services, fumigation and security services across JAMB’s offices across the country.

‘But, these costs include salaries for contractors who provide these essential services and are doing so on a contract basis, and they are both comprehensive and justifiable,’ he explained.

Justification in a time of rising costs

The budget constrained feeding cost was reduced from ₦1.27 billion to ₦1.1 billion partly to adjust to the proposal. Additional staff and rising food prices pushed the amount spent daily on meals from ₦1,200 to ₦2,200.