ONDO RESUMES BURSARY PAYMENT NEXT WEEK

Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko has assured students of the state origin in various tertiary institutions across the country, who are yet to collect their cheques for the 2008/2009 scholarship and bursary awards, that payment will begin next Monday at the office of the State Scholarship Board in Akure.

Mimiko, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi, in Akure on Tuesday, expressed regret over the stoppage of the payment to the students by the SSB and attributed the development to fraud discovered in the system.

The Governor stated these when he received representatives of Ondo students at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, who paid him a courtesy visit on Tuesday.

He assured them that the payment would commence next Monday and regretted that it was unfortunate that students themselves connived with some unscrupulous officials to print fake identity cards, letters of admission among others, to defraud the government of millions of naira, which could have been used for many other students of the state origin.

Mimiko said, 'I want to appeal to our students to desist from this unwholesome practice. Some of you have connived with unscrupulous officials to siphon millions of naira from the government through the printing of fake identity cards, admission letters and letters of attestation from local government of origin among others.