Upon receipt of the UBEC's N1.5b, Kwara returned the N1.5b it had borrowed from the bank and then diverted the UBEC's N1.5b without investing it in educational infrastructure as required by law, they said.
Kwara State was black listed by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) because the then state government mismanaged the N1.5bn grant meant to upgrade schools in Kwara in 2013.
This was revealed on Thursday during a visit of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to the UBEC headquarters in Abuja.
Officials told the governor that the sum of N1.5bn was allotted to Kwara in 2013 with a request for the state to pay another N1.5bn as counterpart funding.
The officials said the government was later discovered to have borrowed the N1.5bn from a bank with which it immediately accessed the UBEC fund.
Upon receipt of the UBEC's N1.5b, Kwara returned the N1.5b it had borrowed from the bank and then diverted the UBEC's N1.5b without investing it in educational infrastructure as required by law, they said.
This led to UBEC blacklisting Kwara and demanding for an immediate refund of its N1.5b.
Kwara later refunded N1.050b leaving an outstanding of N450 million which the Abdulfatai Ahmed's administration never paid to UBEC.
AbdulRazaq was told that UBEC will only do business with Kwara when the outstanding N450m is refunded to UBEC by Kwara.
The Kwara delegation led by AbdulRazaq promised to pay the N450m to enable the state to access the funds to develop its schools.
Kwara has not accessed UBEC funds since 2013.
UBEC has at least N5.6 billion available for Kwara which can only be accessed if and when the state pays the outstanding debt of N450m.
AbdulRazaq's visit to UBEC came barely 48 hours after he visited decrepit schools in the northern senatorial district of Kwara where most of the schools' roofs had collapsed.
He had promised to look into the devastating state of the infrastructure across the state especially in schools, hospitals and road networks.
