From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the 2022 financial disbursement to publicly owned tertiary institutions, Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education (CoE), in Nigeria in line with Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) approved guidelines.
The President approved N642,848,138.00 for each public university; N396,780,086.00 for each public Polytechnic, and N447,758,804.00 approved for each public College of Education.
In 2021, the President approved N292.6 billion for tertiary institutions, with each public university allocated N906 million, while N628 was allocated to each Polytechnic and College of Education.
Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, who disclosed the information at a meeting with heads of public tertiary institutions in Abuja, on Monday, informed the institutions that there was sharp drop in the amount of the money disbursed in 2022 when compared to what was disbursed in the previous year.
However, there are indications that there might be rise in financial allocation next year due to the hike in education tax from 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent.
The TETFund boss reminded the heads of institutions about the violatility of the market with regards to inflation, thus urging the schools to fasten construction work on their projects to avoid being cut up with rising inflation.
He said: “The enormous task of repositioning the tertiary education sector for sustained relevance is a collective one, and it requires that we work in harmony and synergy to achieve the desired national objective through a robust and high quality higher education sector.
“This synergy, which is the aggregation of multiple resources that provide greater value, cooperation and teamwork will require that we bring on board our collective experiences and expertise towards finding solutions to specific national problems and goals.”
He reminded the benefiting institutions that the broad areas of interventions as approved by the Board of Trustees, are categorized into the annual direct intervention, and the special interventions which are usually at the discretion of the Board of Trustees or the directives of the Federal Government.
“But in all cases; disbursements are based on the equality of states and of geo-political zones as enshrined in the enabling Act. The letters of allocation for the annual direct intervention shall be released to you at end of this meeting, while the allocations for special interventions will be released appropriately in due course.”
Meanwhile, the TETFund management has announced the removal of internal audit clearance request on submissions to access second tranche payment, where there is a final tranche outstanding.
TETFund said that, henceforth, internal audit clearance will only be required before payment of final tranche. “The decision is to eliminate bottlenecks and delays in the execution of the intervention projects,” it said.
TETFund highlighted other area of concern which is the incidence of distressed or non-performing projects which is becoming rampart and disturbing. “For example, there are about seven non-performing/distressed projects in University of Port Harcourt; six in Enugu State University; five in University
of Nigeria Nsukka; four in Taraba State University; four in Kaduna State University and one at Alvan koku College of Education.
“This phenomenon becomes even more worrisome, when viewed alongside the problem of un-accessed funds. We are mindful of the intricate variables in project management and delivery as well as the constraints created by our own internal policies and are ensuring that we review our processes where required but will also demand from beneficiary institutions accountability and sanctions where needed.”
TETFund promised that, in the coming weeks, they would engage beneficiary institutions who have these serious problems with the view to bringing the projects to speedy completion and use.
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejoh, in his remarks, appreciated the effort of TETFund to change the face of the institutions through quality buildings and other interventions.