Tertiary Education Ministry Pays Allowance To Venezuela Students
By Kelvin Jay
The Sierra Leonean Students in Venezuela were gleeful on Monday when their parents received their student allowances on behalf of them at the conference room of the Ministry of Tertiary Education.
These allowances were presented to the parents of the students in a form of cheques written in the local currency.
The student allowance is supposed to be $1,800 per anum, and according to the Ministry, the payment was made in Leones, in equivalent to the exchange rate of the dollar.
The Minister of Tertiary and Higher Education, Ramatulai Wurie, registered the Government’s commitment to provide the financial supports to students who are beneficiaries to study in different countries in the world, in which Venezuela and Cuba is part of. She continued by explaining that the delay of the payment is as a result of the sanction imposed on these countries by the United States Government, which means that the Government of Sierra Leone cannot remit funds to these countries. “The delay of payment of student allowances to students in Venezuela and Cuba is due to the sanctions imposed on these countries by the United States Government, and that has prevented the Ministry from remitting funds directly to the students in those countries”, the Minister disclosed, adding by registering the Government commitment to provide the financial supports to students who are beneficiaries of scholarships to study abroad.
The Student Secretary in the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education, George Agbeigeima Dambo, expressed similar sentiments, and further stated that 9 students are supposed to receive their allowance, but 8 of their representatives are present to receive, while they explained the process leading to the payment of allowances to the beneficiaries.
One of the parents of the students, Madam Saffiatu Ibrahim, expressed her happiness for receiving the students allowance, stating how this will help to relieve the stress the students are going through in studying in Venezuela. “We are happy to receive the allowances of our kids. This would help to ease their stress and constraints they faced out there”, the parents added, noting that in previous years, they had been receiving their kids allowances on time, but they experienced a delay this time around. The Parent explained about the Transparency in the process.
