The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc Sonny Echono, has disclosed that the Federal Government through the Fund has expended the sum of N3.8 billion on the stranded Nigerian scholars abroad in recent years.
Echono, made this known in Abuja when he received the House of Representatives Committee on TETFund and other services on an oversight visit to the Fund’s headquarters.
He said, “We have taken care of 1500 scholars with a total of N3.8 billion expended. We identified a cut-off point for those who will be eligible for the scholarship.”
He noted that the high exchange rate caused some challenges for TETFund-sponsored scholars as many of them requested extra funding, explaining the N3.8 billion bailout fund to cushion the effect of the current exchange rate of the naira.
Echono added that this had also resulted in a drop in the number of beneficiaries of the Fund’s academic training programme in foreign institutions.
He disclosed that the remittances process for scholars in the past was not that good, saying many of the institutions came back to TETFund expressing concerns over the payment system.
“But we now pay directly to the institution as part of our intervention. So CBN now transfers in bulk to different institutions for those scholars.”
He commended the Honourable Miriam Onuoha-led House of Representatives Committee, for their role in the various projects and interventions of the agency that are fast making positive impacts in the country.
He thanked the committee for its support, which had given rise to education tax collection from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent.
He said the collection from education tax in 2020 was N257 billion, and by 2021, the fund received a sharp decline in the tax collection of N185.5 billion.
He added that the collection rose to 328.8 billion in 2022 and 725 billion in 2023, respectively.
Echono also spoke about the issue of attracting foreign grants for cutting-edge research, noting that before now, Nigeria was not doing well, adding that through the efforts of TETFund, the story has now changed as Nigeria has moved from the 9th position to the 7th in Africa in terms of countries that attract the highest research grants on the continent.
Chairman of the committee, Miriam Onuoha, in her remarks, lauded Echono for the manner in which he has meticulously executed projects and other interventions in line with the mandate of the TETFund.
She the committee has the mandate to ensure that allocations made to TETFund are used judiciously.
Onuoha, however, expressed concern about the situation where funds meant for tertiary institutions were not accessed by those they were meant for.
She urged relevant government bodies as well as state governors to use their instrumentality of office to ensure that heads of institutions comply with TETFund on accessing their funds.
She said the purpose of the oversight was to see how well the agency had performed in the 2022–2023 budget, in line with the budgetary provision.
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