The House of Representatives yesterday resolved to investigate American International School, Abuja and other foreign schools in the federal capital territory over dollar denomination of school fees and exploitation of parents.
The decision was consequent upon a motion by Hon. Emmanuel Agboola (Ekiti-PDP) and 14 others in the house. Leading debate on the motion, Agboola said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had, on April 17, 2015, issued a circular titled; “Currency Substitution and Dollarisation of the Nigerian Economy,” to reform the currency regulations.
He said the circular was in pursuant to Sections 15, 20 (1) and (5) of the CBN Act, which made it illegal to price or denominate the cost of any product or service in any foreign currency in Nigeria other than the naira. The lawmaker expressed concern that the American International School, Abuja (AISA) was charging school fees in United States Dollars (USD).
Speaking further, Agboola said some other international schools in the country were also collecting school fees in foreign currencies, contrary to the CBN policy on the currency for transaction of businesses in the country.
He explained that the AISA disregarded the extant financial regulations even when it was inclined to collect the fees in naira and could accept naira only on the parallel market rate and on the prevailing rate for the day. According to the lawmaker, the use of the parallel market rate to determine the amount of fees to be collected in naira entails that parents pay school fees at different rates.
“This depends on the rate in the parallel market, and as such, parents of children in the same class end up paying different fees for their wards, depending on the day the payment was made,” he said.
He further expressed worry that insistence on collecting fees on the prevailing parallel market rate amounted to a malicious rip off that the AISA and other international schools had been perpetrating on hapless Nigerians.
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