The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Professor Suleiman Elias Bogoro, Tuesday said N359 billion was withdrawn in 2013 from the account of the agency without due process.
Bogoro stated this while responding to questions from members of the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Institutions and Services in Abuja during their oversight visit to the Fund.
When making clarifications on the missing fund, the TETFund boss said the management filed petitions to the Ministry of Finance and the National Assembly, all in a bid to recover the money from the government to no avail.
The House Committee, led by Hon. Aminu Suleiman, made reference to the fund in their audited financial reports during the visit.
“Under the guise of borrowing, the total sum of N359billion was taken out between September and December 2013 without any consultation whatsoever, but with the Treasury Single Account (TSA) coming into place in 2015, a lot of things have changed.
“On that amount, I think there was about N128 billion taken out in one tranche that had nothing to do with education, we had to write the Ministry of Finance requesting for the money, it was even ascribed to me by some mischievous persons.
“We, however, appreciate the National Assembly members for their concerns and efforts to see that these monies are refunded to us by this year because it will help our accounts to be more balanced,” he said.
Bogoro said there has been a paradigm shift by investing more in research and development rather than building physical infrastructure in institutions.
He told the lawmakers that over 200 institutions were on the beneficiary list of TETFund from the 15 areas of intervention of the fund.
He said occasionally, they had reasons to update and review and add the few areas of interventions considered to be very important.
“We have to invest in human capital through academic staff training and development. We have sponsored over 26,000 for PhD and Masters degrees, almost an equal number in overseas and within the country.
“We have recently introduced postdoctoral support for those who have just finished their PhD up to a period of five years for the purposes of undertaking post-doctoral research,” he said.
Clarifying, Bogoro told the committee that, “We have not overshot our budget spending. We have always lived within our statutory means. It is FIRS that collects money and sends it to the Central Bank. Until it is sent to the intervention account we cannot assess it. TETFund keeps within the responsible realm of its expenditure.”
The committee chairman, satisfied with the explanations of the executive secretary, said “If TETFund is good it is our pride” and promised to understudy the account books presented to them before making further comments.
