From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), said on Tuesday, that revenue due for disbursement to benefitting public tertiary institutions dropped by N68bn when compared to revenue collected in the previous year.
Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, who disclosed the development at a meeting with heads of benefitting institutions in Abuja, expressed optimism that with the increase in education tax from two to three per cent, more funds would be available for disbursement to institutions in subsequent years.
He said: “the revenue collection dropped from N257bn to N189bn, indicating a shortfall of N68bn. Nevertheless, we have disbursed more funds than any other year since the establishment of the Fund despite the challenges.”
The TETFund boss said the Agency was concerned with the fact that Nigeria was yet to benefit significantly from the desired impact of the research interventions, stating, “we shall be considering new pathways to achieving greater impact on our various research and development interventions.”
He confirmed that the Fund was reviewing their processes for enhanced and better service delivery to beneficiary institutions. “We are currently re-working our 2007 edition of guidelines for disbursement and will make it available to you, when competed.
“We have also done some internal auditing of our staff and systems to achieve better efficiency in the deployment to various departments of the Fund. We also requested that you do the same with respect to TETFund Desk officers in your institutions.
“We are hopeful that these and other similar measures would place the Fund in a better position to discharge its mandate and functions to the nation,” he said.
Meanwhile, there were deliberations on ways to promote innovations, entrepreneurship and employability of graduates of Nigerian tertiary institutions, as well as feedback on the TETFund Skill G intervention project from inception, and a brief presentation by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) on the procurement processes to facilitate speedy and seamless implementation of projects as chief accounting officers, amongst others.