Delta government goes tough on Illegal education levies as police kill alleged notorious robber

The Delta State Government has frowned on the continued cases of illegal levies in public primary and secondary schools amid repeated threats of sanctions.The Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Chief Patrick Ukah, reiterated the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa administration’s zero tolerance for the menace, warning that any school head caught in the act would be made to face the full wrath of the law.He advised parents against encouraging the act but should instead report administrators that demand the unlawful dues, restating that the approved levies remain one thousand and fifty naira.

The commissioner said: “The principals and school heads involved in the ignoble act are hereby advised to retrace their steps, as any of them that collects a kobo more than the approved levies will be sanctioned appropriately.“The approved levies for public primary schools are: school badge for primary one to primary six at N50 per child for every three years; report cards for primary one and transfer pupils are N250 every six years; consumables for primary one to primary six are N100 per term.”

“For students in public-post primary schools, they are to pay N150 every session for school badge, N200 every three years for students’ identity cards, N200 per term for consumables, and for SS I to SS III, N300 is for sports/NSSF levy on a term basis.”He added that all students, including transfer students, would pay N250 per term for customised online result while JS 1, SS 1 and transfer students are to pay N150 every three years for file.

Ukah stated that if the Parents’ Teachers’ Associations (PTAs) of schools were to do any intervention in schools, “such decision must be taken during a general meeting of the body where the parents should agree on a particular amount to be paid. And the money collected should be paid into the account of the PTA whose executives are to disburse the funds to meet the objective for which it was agreed.”He reaffirmed that any principal or school head that collects beyond the approved levies would be treated as a violator of the law.

Meanwhile, the state police command has confirmed the death of an alleged notorious armed robber and kidnap kingpin, one Ekugbe Kingsley.He reportedly died during a gun duel.The Commissioner of Police, Adeleke Adeyinka, in a statement by force’s Public Relations Officer, DSP Onome Onovwakpoyeya in Asaba, vowed that the command was out to “end the reign of terror by a negligible few.”

According to the CP, “the command, in keeping with our promise of taking on all crimes and criminality, recorded another feat on Saturday, November, 30, ending the reign of terror by one Ekugbe Kingsley, aged 27 years, from Uwaise in Udu Local Government Area. The corpse has been deposited at the Central Hospital Mortuary in Agbor for autopsy.”