Monrovia — UNDP Policy Advisor Charles Achodo has disclosed that his agency has received more funding to settle the present caseload of ex-combatants who were thrown out of school for tuitions.

However, Mr. Achodo refused to give the amount that UNDP has received but said the amount is enough to settle the present situation that his agency encountering with schools in which ex-combatants are enrolled.

He said the funding was acquired from a UNDP grant specifically against future pledges and current commitment to the Trust Fund.

Mr. Achodo made the disclosure Wednesday at the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) weekly press briefing in Monrovia.

The disclosure by the UNDP Policy Advisor follows comments by Ghanaian Foreign Minister, Nana Akufo Addo that the UN Trust Fund for Liberia was emptied.

With emphasis, Mr. Addo said the situation poses a security problem to the Transitional Government, and that the RR component of the DDRR had run into financial problems.

He pointed out that Government revenues are inadequate to fill the gap with the attendant consequences that thousands of ex-combatants have been agitating to enter the program.

But the UNDP Policy Advisor told journalists that the amount would meet the school needs of the remaining 3,793 ex-combatants out of the 11,000 ex-combatants that are in various schools in the country.

He said that schools that the UNDP is indebted to were expected to begin receiving their money for ex-combatants tuitions as of yesterday (Wednesday) up to next week.

According to him, there are 88 institutions out of the 103 that are to benefit from the funding. The rest of the institutions, he said, have been taken care of.

He pointed out that it is unfortunate that ex-combatants were thrown out of school for tuitions.

This, he blamed on the shortfall in the Trust Fund.

Additionally, Mr. Achodo said UNDP had early on targeted 7,200 ex-combatants to pay their school fees for academic 2004/05 but the number increased to 11,000, thus creating fund shortage for the remaining 3,793 ex-combatants.

Moreover, he attributed the shortfall in the Trust Fund to the increase of ex-combatants they had early anticipated to go through the disarmament process.

The UNDP Policy Advisor explained that they were told that about 38,000 ex-combatants were expected to be disarmed.

"But surprisingly, the number jumped to more than 100,000, which created shortfall in the Trust Fund," he said.

At the same time, he emphasized that the UNDP still needs 58 million United States dollars to successfully implement the Rehabilitation and reintegration process.