FG disburses N213bn to tertiary institutions

THERE was a windfall for the public tertiary institutions in Nigeria on Tuesday following the approval by President Muhammadu Buhari for the disbursement of over N213 billion as intervention fund to the institutions.

Each of the 40 federal universities and 34 state universities will receive the sum of N1,009,410,000 only.

Also, each of the 54 public polytechnics get the sum of N691,632,000 while each of the 55 public colleges of education receive the sum of N679,057,000 for improvement in the teaching and learning infrastructure as well as research activities at the institutions.

Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) Dr Abdullahi Bichi Baffa, who made this known while addressing newsmen in Abuja on the development said the figure was the biggest ever annual direct disbursement (normal intervention) given to any beneficiary institution since the establishment of the Fund.

He said in supporting the fund to continue to pursue its mandate, President Buhari, approved the sum for the TETFund 2016 Intervention Budget for the year 2017 intervention activities.

Highlights of the intervention budget of N213,418,124,493.75 are: annual direct disbursements, ​​​N149,392,687,145.63; High Impact Phase VI​​​​ 30,000,000,000; Zonal interventions​​​​, N12,000,000,000; Stabilisation Fund​​​​, N10,670,906,224.69; Designated projects, N5,400,000,000.00 and National Research Fund​​​​, N1,000,000,000.

He said the management of the fund met with all the provosts, rectors and vice chancellors of public colleges of education, public polytechnics and public universities, respectively as a prelude to the annual strategic planning workshop.

Baffa, pointed out that the 2016 allocation to beneficiary institutions is almost three times the allocation given to them in 2015 even though the Fund had more money in 2015 than it has now.

He also revealed that academic staff training and development is allocated N300m for universities, N200m each for polytechnics and colleges of education as against N100m, N70m and N60m respectively, in 2015.

While programme upgrade is allocated N565.4million for universities, N380.632m for polytechnics and N371.06m for colleges of education as against N100m, N70m and N72m respectively, in 2015.

The Executive Secretary, however, announced the cancellation of special intervention programmes of the Fund by President Buhari and ordering investigation into alleged abuses of 2014/2015 special interventions.

He noted that in the recent past special intervention from the fund was turned into trade with vendors looking for buyers.

He said between 2014 and 2015 during the last administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, over N260 billion was diverted under the guise of special intervention in some tertiary institutions.

Baffa, said when he came about six months ago, he met the Fund in decay and recklessly abused and was “haemorrhaging begging to be saved.”

“The president, had while approving the 2016 intervention budget did not make provisions for special interventions due to its abuse in the past.

“Therefore, in the 2017 intervention activities, no allocation was made for special interventions. This measure is in addition to the cancellation of the special allocations for projects that did not commence prior to August 2016; that is from the date of my appointment as the Executive Secretary.

“Beneficiary institutions are therefore urged to steer clear of fraudsters who are still going about looking for, or claiming to have gotten allocations for special interventions.

“Rather than spending bulk of the money on normal intervention it was turned upside down.

“In 2015, for example, over N200 billion was recklessly allocated as special intervention to very few beneficiary institutions while only N50 billion was allocated for normal intervention to be shared among all beneficiary institutions.

“Something is wrong when you take N200 billion and allocate base on discretion and the one that the law said that they must be treated equally-all universities must be treated equally; all polytechnics must be treated equally and all colleges of education must be treated equally-only 20 per cent, about N50 billion was shared.

“We are lucky that Mr President came to the rescue and cancelled all special interventions for 2014 and 2015 for which money has not been drawn.

“We are able to save almost N74 billion for the cancellation of the more than N200 billion special intervention fund.

“We are also appreciative of Mr President approval that special intervention for 2014/2015 for which money has already been paid should be investigated and this investigation is going to commence soon,” he said.

He said TETFund holds a lot of promise and has done too much, saying it was unfortunate that the very people that were entrusted with the business of protecting the trust would be the very ones that would mercilessly abuse that trust.

He maintained that these alleged abuses would  not be swept under the carpet as those found culpable in waste of public funds would be brought to book.

On the billions of un-accessed fund, Baffa, disclosed that the Fund would be running an Access Clinic for beneficiary institutions with backlog of unutilised funds.

He said the inability of institutions to access and utilise their allocation as at when due has always been a source of concern to the Fund, as it impedes the realisation of fund’s mandate with the attendant consequence of slowing down the growth and progress of the institutions.

“The main objective of the clinic is discussed, diagnose and remedy all encumbrances so as to get the institution fulfil the requirements to access.

“Some of the time, the reasons for backlog are around accounting for (retiring) previous allocation, rough transition from one administration to another, infringements by contractors, insufficient information, non-compliance with procurement act,” he said.