Dele Alake, the minister of solid minerals development, says schools in Nigeria charging tuition fees in foreign currencies should be closed.

Mr Alake made the call at the Nigeria Gold Day Celebration on the sidelines of the 10th edition of Nigeria’s Mining Week on Wednesday in Abuja. He criticised the practice, describing it as part of the leakages and loopholes in Nigeria’s economy, which threaten its growth.

“I am still going to make a proposal to the Federal Executive Council that all those schools in Nigeria that are charging in foreign currencies should be closed. These are some of the leakages and loopholes that we say exist in our economy that people do not really take these things very seriously,“ he said. “If you look at the foreign currency that goes into some of this, it is humongous.”

The minister added, “If your child is attending a school in Abuja or Lagos or somewhere in the country and is paying £10,000 or $10,000 as their fees, that means you will be looking for naira to go and buy dollars. Driving the value of the dollar up, whereas this school is in Abuja in Nigeria.

“You can’t go to the UK, establish a school, and then be charging naira. It’s not done. It’s only in this country that I see so many contradictory things that really demolish the economy.“

The minister said the government was introducing various measures, including digital mechanisms, to ensure that all leakages in Nigeria’s gold value chain were blocked and every loophole sealed.

He said the move would reduce room for interpersonal transactions, thereby reducing the propensity of corruption, which would further position Nigeria’s gold as one of the  global pillars of means of exchange of value.

He said the government’s National Gold Purchase Programme, implemented through the Solid Minerals Development Fund, was designed to shore up Nigeria’s foreign reserves and strengthen the naira.

Mr Alake explained that the NGPP, a component of the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Initiative, allows the government to buy gold directly from artisanal miners in naira, rather than spending foreign exchange to purchase gold internationally.

(NAN)