NEWS
Ebonyi Releases over N13bn for National, Foreign Scholarships
From Godwin Okeh, Abakaliki
The Chairman Ebonyi state scholarship board, Chaka Nweze has said that the state government has released over N3bn to sponsor 263 students on foreign scholarships.Nweze disclosed this to journalists shortly after briefing the beneficiaries of the foreign scholarship at the Exco chambers, Old government house, Abakaliki, capital of Ebonyi state.
He noted that the governor, Francis Nwifuru released the N3bn to the board for the sponsorship of students on master’s degree. The Chairman, Nweze, however commended the state governor for providing all necessary support to the beneficiaries of foreign scholarship, adding that the scholarship board does not have challenges as regard to the scholarship.”We don’t have any challenges regarding the foreign scholarship because the board has already been funded by the state governor and even when we are doing national scholarship, the board was equally funded.”The beneficiaries of foreign scholarships have been profiled and we have equally paid their tuition fees and any moment from now, their living expenses will be given to them.”From Master’s Degree to doctorate degree at the end of the day, the state government will spend close to 3 billion naira.”For the national scholarship for this year alone government will spend 15 billion and meanwhile, governor has released 10 billion for the foreign scholarship for us and it may need to release another 500 hundred million for their logistics because we have to provide them with flight tickets and visa for each student is appropriately 490 people and some of them who don’t have passport, we need to open passport for them.”Ebonyi State government has started engaging foreign universities and even before now, I have traveled to the United Kingdom alongside with the commissioner for tertiary institutions to engage universities we are using for now and we are in touch with them and right now they have given us modius opparadi to follow.”We have a total of 263 foreign scholarship candidates to depart to the United Kingdom by the end of this month and the first batch is 212 candidates,” he stated.
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit Zone C, says it intercepted contrabands with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N510.92 million between July 15th and September 15th, 2024.The zone covers the six states in the South-South geopolitical zone and the five states in the Southeast geopolitical zone.
This is contained in a statement signed by Jerry Attah, Public Relations Officer, NCS, Zone C, and made available to journalists on Wednesday. According to the statement, Comptroller Michael Ugbagu, NCS, Zone C, gave the statistics while showcasing the seized contraband to relevant regulatory agencies at the Government Warehouse in Edo.Ugbagu said that the zone also recovered the sum of N25.57 million from demand notices raised based on some infractions noticed, making a cumulative sum of N536.49 million recorded within the months under review.“The DPV was derived from our seized goods, which include 49,699 sachets of various brands of tramadol and 3,350 bottles of various cough syrups with codeine without an NAFDAC number.“1,015 sacks of dry donkey meat and skin, 75 jumbo bales of second-hand clothing, 463 cartons of foreign spaghetti, 269 pieces of used pneumatic tires, and 56 cartons of smuggled foreign tomato paste.“More worrisome is the interception of 49,699 sachets of various brands of tramadol and 3,350 bottles of various cough syrups with codeine without NAFDAC registration numbers.”He noted that the cough syrup with codeine and tramadol without NAFDAC registration numbers, if not intercepted, could have had adverse effects on youths.He added that the items were mostly intercepted along the Ewu-Okada/Benin expressways based on credible intelligence. (NAN)
The Forum of Stakeholders of the All Progressive Congress (APC) has decried the deplorable condition of some federal roads in Nigeria. Alhaji Saleh Zazzaga, the North-Central Chairman of the forum, said this in an interaction with newsmen on Wednesday in Jos. Zazzaga described some of the federal roads as ”death traps”, particularly those within the north-central region.
He said that some of the deplorable roads in the region include Jos-Akwanga, Makurdi-Oturkpo-Otukpa, Makurdi-Ankpa, and Jos-Saminaka. Other roads that needed urgent attention, he said, included Suleja-Minna, Ejule-Otukpa, Ganawuri-Manchok, Lokoja-Abuja, Lapai-Agaie-Bida, Birnin-Gwari-Bokani-Mokwa, Minna-Zungeru-Tegina-Kontagora. ”Currently, the north-central region has the most deplorable roads and highways in the country. ”These deplorable roads have brought severe hardship on the people and lost lives and property through preventable road traffic crashes. ”We call on President Bola Tinubu to intervene and ensure the rehabilitation of these roads because good roads are vital enablers of development,” he said. The chairman also called on governors of states within the region to reconstruct the dilapidated roads and seek refunds from the federal government. ”Though these are largely federal roads, they are located within states, and the beneficiaries are the people of these states. ”So we call on state governments to reconstruct these roads and seek refunds from the federal government,” he added. (NAN
The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened 160 pips to 7.087 against the dollar on Wednesday.This is according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.In China’s spot foreigners exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by two per cent from the central parity rate each trading day.
The central parity rate of the yuan against the dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day. (Xinhua/NAN)
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