The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has said it is working towards disbursing approved student loans within 45 days, provided beneficiaries are due to commence their academic sessions.

Managing Director of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, disclosed this while speaking with Arise News, explaining that loan disbursements are being synchronised with the academic calendars of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

Sawyerr said the 45-day timeline was necessary to make the loan scheme more orderly, particularly as institutions operate different academic calendars and have experienced disruptions from industrial actions.

“There are a number of moving parts here, but we certainly endeavor to pay within 45 days, provided that the value that needs to be realized is when the schools start,” he said.

He explained that students should not assume that approval of their applications automatically means immediate payment, stressing that NELFUND only disburses when the funding is required for an ongoing or imminent academic session.

“You might make an application in January, but if your school doesn’t start till September, we’re not going to make a payment until you can begin to receive value,” he said.

According to him, the Fund is currently working to synchronise applications, institutional approvals and disbursements with school calendars to prevent unnecessary delays.

“Some of the students may have applied before then. We are trying to synchronise this and make this more orderly,” he said.

Sawyerr said the process also requires cooperation from beneficiary institutions, particularly in the prompt processing of approvals needed before NELFUND can release funds.

The NELFUND boss disclosed that the Fund currently has about 1.8 million applications and has made cumulative disbursements to about 1.6 million beneficiaries.

He said the huge demand for the scheme had necessitated upgrades to NELFUND’s systems to improve their capacity, strengthen security and guard against hackers and fraud.

Sawyerr also disclosed that the Fund had cleared the outstanding upkeep allowances for May, June and July and was preparing to pay the August allowance.

He, however, declined to guarantee that students would never experience delays in future, noting that the scale of NELFUND’s operations meant that periodic maintenance and upgrades would sometimes be unavoidable.

According to him, the Fund would instead work to minimise disruptions and communicate planned maintenance activities to students ahead of time.

“Our guarantee is that we’ll communicate this with the student community whenever we’re going to do this, so that they can be better prepared and better planned,” Sawyerr said.