The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has issued a stern warning that tertiary institutions face immediate suspension from its scheme if they are found engaging in fraudulent practices related to student loans.
The firm stance is part of a new crackdown aimed at protecting the integrity of the recently launched financial aid programme.
According to the latest operational guidelines obtained by Spear News, universities and other institutions will be penalised for actions such as falsifying student records, colluding with pupils to secure loans for ineligible purposes, or failing to promptly refund overpaid funds to the scheme.
The move follows recent scrutiny of several institutions over incidents of duplicate payments and a failure to return excess money to the fund.
The newly published framework now mandates that any eligible institution “shall refund any overpayment or duplicated payments made for any student,” requiring such processes to be completed within a maximum of 30 calendar days.
On the specific sanctions, the guidelines state unequivocally that any institution which contravenes the Student Loan Act of 2024 or the fund’s regulations will be suspended from receiving further disbursements.
This suspension would be enacted if an institution is found to have engaged in “fraudulent activities related to institutional charges payment,” or if it fails to refund any overpayments.
NELFUND further clarified that disbursements may also be suspended while allegations of misconduct or irregularities are under investigation, ensuring that public funds are protected during any inquiry.
However, in a measure designed to protect students, the fund confirmed that the suspension of an institution would not affect existing students already enrolled in the loan scheme.
The exception to this would be in cases directly involving overpayments or duplicate payments linked to a particular student.
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