Decade of intervention: TETFund recounts stewardship

CLEMENT IDOKO, writes on how the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), has fared in the last 10 years of intervention in tertiary institutions in Nigeria as it rendered account of stewardship to stakeholders at the third triennial Taxpayers Forum in Lagos penultimate week.

Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu and other critical stakeholders have agreed that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) established as a “child of necessity,” has become a lifeline to most public tertiary institutions in Nigeria in the last 10 years.

Sanwo-Olu and others spoke at the third Edition of Taxpayers Forum organised by TETFund as a tripartite regular interactions between TETFund, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and taxpayers across the country.

The event held recently in Lagos, with captains of industry, academia and public functionaries in attendance, also served as an opportunity to look back into 10 years of operation of the Fund since its amended ACT No 16 of 2011 as well as reward deserving individuals and companies.

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, formerly Education Trust Fund (ETF) was established to intervene in the areas of essential physical infrastructure for teaching and learning, instructional materials and equipment, research and publication, academic staff training and development, educational support services, and any other need deemed necessary by the Board of Trustees as provided in the amended Act No 16 of 2011, that established the Fund.

The source of funding is the two per cent (2%) education tax introduced by the government at the establishment of ETF in 1993 before its transformation into TETFund in 2011. The two per cent education tax is annually remitted by companies through the FIRS to TETFund for allocation and onward disbursement to beneficiary institutions across the country.

A document obtained from the agency entitled: “2021 Taxpayers Forum” clearly indicated that a total of 220 tertiary institutions are currently benefitting from TETFund intervention as follows: universities 86, that is 43 federal universities and 43 state-owned universities; polytechnics 65, 25 federal and 40 state; and Colleges of Education 69 representing 22 Federal Colleges of Education and 47 state-owned Colleges of Education.

The Lagos State Governor who was represented at the event by his deputy, Dr Kadiri Obafemi Hamzat, said: “Funding has been a major topic regarding our tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Adequate funding for infrastructure development and research will definitely have positive impact on the quality of research and also reduce the problem incessant strike actions and disruptions of academic calendar in our public institutions.”

He noted that the theme of this year’s edition of Taxpayers forum, “TETFUND Intervention: Catalyst for Transforming Tertiary Education in Nigeria,” reflects perfectly the main objective that informed the establishment of TETFund in the first instance, adding that the “emergence of TETFund in the nation’s educational space as an interventionist Fund has provided respite and succour to the ailing educational system at a time when financing was a challenge.

Executive Secretary of TETFund, Professor Suleiman Bogoro in his remark, said the collective efforts over the years had not been in vain, adding that the Fund since establishment, has recorded tremendous achievements.

“A careful observation will reveal that the Fund has between January and December 2020 alone carried out 16,982 various infrastructure projects across beneficiary institutions. Considering the projects carried out since inception, based on annual allocation to institutions over the years 2011-2021], it is estimated that a total of over 152,838 various infrastructure projects have been carried out across various public tertiary institutions,” Bogoro said.

He explained that these projects included construction of lecture theatres, classrooms, hostels, offices, laboratories, road networks and fencing of institutions in different parts of the country.

On academic staff training and development, the TETFund boss disclosed that the Fund had sponsored over 10,632 lecturers in the local Ph.D. programme, over 9,072 lecturers in the local Master’s degree programme across the country between 2017 and 2020. The Fund had also sponsored well over 4,485 lecturers to overseas institutions for Ph.D. programmes and over 3,192 Master’s degree candidates also overseas, across tertiary institutions within the same period.

He said: “The Fund has further supported 71,263 lecturers in federal and state Colleges of Education under its teacher supervision programme, bringing it to a total 98,644, the number of academic staff across public tertiary institutions that have benefited from the academic staff training and development programme of the Fund.

“The Fund has sponsored an estimated 17,121 academic staff across tertiary institutions in the country to foreign conferences, 4,459 non-academic staff of public tertiary institutions have also benefitted from same sponsorship. Again, 17,410 academic staff was sponsored to attend local conferences within the country, while about 28,660 non-academic staff were sponsored by the Fund to attend local conferences/workshops across beneficiary tertiary institutions in the country, all in the effort to build the nations capacity, skill, and manpower. In all, the Fund has sponsored a total of 67,650 academic and non-academic staff of public tertiary institutions to local and overseas conferences between 2011 and year 2021,” he stated.

Bogoro also noted that the Fund’s other laudable intervention programmes also recorded tremendous impact, including library development and academicmanuscript development to books, saying between year 2011 and 2021, the Fund succeeded in procuring 2,080,041 books for use in libraries of public tertiary institutions across the nation, to equip students and lecturers of institutions with resources required to impart the necessary knowledge required in the 21st century.

He added that TETFund also between 2011 and 2020 procured 152,844 e-resources and 380,778 equipment and furniture distributed to various public tertiary institutions across the country, adding that in the area of academic manuscripts to books, the Fund supported and approved a total of 1,362 manuscripts to books across 149 public tertiary institutions in the country.

In the area of research, Bogoro noted that within the Fund, the National Research Fund (NRF) was set up and N3 billion was provided for its take off in 2011 and that in 2015 another N1 billion was added.

He further explained that in 2019, following approval by the TETFund Board of Trustees, the NRF allocation became annual and N5 billion was approved for same year. In 2020, following the recommendation of the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, President Muhammadu Buhari approved a further 50 per cent increase in allocation to the NRF, being N7.5 billion for that year and N8.5 Billion in 2021.

Accordingly, between year 2012 and 2019, a total of about N9 Billion was committed to the NRF with about 457 research projects approved across the country. This is in addition to the Institution Based Research grants and support for Academic Research Journals across public tertiary institutions by the TETFund.

The Executive Secretary added that about 2,175 projects were approved for the Institution Based Research (IBR), between 2011  and 2021, while about 342 academic research journal projects were undertaken within the period.

Chairman, Board of Trustees of (TETFund), Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, while also reeling out some of the achievements of TETFund through the support of the taxpayers, disclosed that the agency is targeting more than N500 billion education tax collection by 2023.

He further noted that in response to the challenges of acute shortage of hostels in universities in the country, the Board of Trustees of TETFund has approved the construction of 160,000 additional bed spaces in the institutions across the country.

Minister of Education of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, who was represented by the pro-chancellor of University of Benin, Dr Sonny Kuku, commended the stakeholders for their contribution while assuring them of the determination of the Federal Government to transform the entire landscape of public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

He disclosed that the Federal Government through TETFund since inception till 2012, when it held the first edition of the Taxpayers Forum, had committed a total sum of N781.09 billion towards the development of and advancement of education sector.

Adamu added that by the year 2015 when the second edition of the Forum was held, a further sum of about N470 billion was collected as Education Tax and deployed for various infrastructure and academic development initiatives in the nation’s tertiary education sector.

The guest speaker and vice chancellor of University of Lagos, Professor Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, took the stakeholders through the evolution of TETFundand various interventions in the over 220 tertiary institutions, affirming that University of Lagos has been one of the key beneficiary institution with the Fund’s projects dotting the landscape of the institution including academic staff training and development, he personally benefitted at various time.

He, however, said one of the challenges was the refusal of the registered companies in Nigeria to pay the education tax.

He said: “There is need for the companies to pay tax, it’s very important, because available data in 2008 indicated that about 2.2 million companies were registered in Nigeria and only 104 companies were always paying.

Highlight of the event was the presentation of awards to honour and identify individuals and companies that have made tremendous contributions to education through the consistent payment of education tax and have invariably contributed to the development of education in Nigeria. A total of 149 companies were listed for the awards.

Speaking after receiving the award on behalf of Julius Berger, the head of the company’s Tax Department, Muniru Haruna, said, “We feel honoured by TETFund’s recognition of Julius Berger as one of the most consistently compliant and in fact, highest tax payer in the country’s construction sector.”

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