The National Examination Council is yet to pay its examiners their stipends despite the conclusion of the marking process for the 2021 Senior School Certificate Examinations which was concluded two months ago, UGAMATV has learnt.

This is as the council also announced the release of results on Friday.

Some of the examiners who lamented their plights to our correspondents wondered why the council would refuse to pay and still go ahead to release the results to the students.

UGAMATV  learnt that marking of each script costs N16 only and each examiner would go home with stipends according to the number of scripts they marked.

One of the examiners, Mrs Kudi Ahmed, who marked mathematics told our correspondent that she had to mark 1,000 scripts to get entitled to N16,000.

She said, “They pay N16 per script; I had to lobby to get 1,000 scripts so that I can get N16,000 and even at that, NECO has refused to pay us.

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“How can we mark over two months ago; you release the results and then you are still holding on to our stipends? This is not fair. The board needs to do better.

“During the marking process, they were on our neck to do a better job; if not for the situation in the country, imagine having to make 1,000 scripts for N16,000. Please help us tell NECO to pay us our money.”

Another examiner, Olaleye Hammed, told our correspondent that the council was not fair by withholding examiners stipends despite the meager amount being paid.

Hammed said, “NECO is not being fair for holding on to the stipends; the stipend is even very small compared to the hard work.

“Some of us had to lobby for more papers because you can’t say you even want to mark 100 papers; that is like N1,600 and even at that, they still held on to the stipends.

“We have not been contacted; no one has said anything. Is it until we protest? I have some of my colleagues who have vowed not to mark for NECO again. This is just terrible.”

When contacted, the spokesperson of the council, Abdulazeez Sani, told our correspondent that the council is trying to find ways to process payments.