Tertiary institution With the transformation of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), to focus on only tertiary institutions, the days of lamenting against poor funding of universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, are no doubt gone. Suffi ce to say that TETFund’s intervention to these institutions has expanded over the years from concentration on infrastructures to training of academic staff and library development, among others.
However, accessing funds for these projects have also been a headache to the disbursing organisaton, such that several rules had to be bent to make the process less cumbersome, but institutions were still fi nding it diffi cult, not because of TETFund, but to their inability to meet the rules and guidelines. Specifi cally, the Fund never intended to give an institution intervention on projects that have no bearing to the physical bearing to the development of the institution and would disburse any money to institutions that have not perfectly retired, the previous one. Consequently, millions and thousand of naira was starched n the bank, while institutions were crying and lamenting of no fund to execute project.
Th e arrival of Dr. Abubakar Bichi Baff a as executive secretary of the Fund and the introduction of Access Clinic, changed the hand writing and institutions could now access their money as at when due. Addressing newsmen in Abuja recently, Baff a said the inability of institutions to access their intervention has become a thing of the past, stating that the Access Clinic, a medium of interaction with institution offi cials, has made it possible for the Fund to know what their problems were.
The total number of beneficiary institutions that defended their proposals at the Project Proposal Defense based on year 2016 allocations issued were 181made up of 74 universities, 50 polytechnics and 57 colleges of education. However, 16 beneficiary institutions that as a result of rotation policy of the Fund did not receive the 2016 intervention allocations were not invited to the Project Defense session. However, they attended the Access Clinic Panel on 8thand 9th May 2017 to clear their backlog of accumulated, but unaccessed funds. Notwithstanding, Baff a listed issues that have caused institutions’ inability to access their funds, stating that “the main aim of the Clinic was to discuss, diagnose and remedy all encumbrances so as to enable the institutions fulfi ll the requirements to access funds.
“Th e exercise also enabled the Fund to reconcile fi nancial records between the Fund and the benefi ciaries which was a challenge in the past. In the process, timelines were extracted from the institutions for concluding the process of access. Th e general impediments aff ecting access to the intervention funds were identifi ed as follows: Programme upgrade/physical infrastructure for teaching and learning intervention After receipt of fi rst tranche of money from the Fund, some benefi ciaries unduly delay payment to contractors. Also some contractors refuse to mobilise to site after receiving mobilisation fees. A greater part of the project cycle is spent on the Benefi ciary pursuing the contractors to mobilise to site.
In some cases, the contractors delay execution TETFund: Making a leedway for intervention fund access of the projects on the ground of price changes due to foreign exchange fl uctuations despite signing fi xed contracts with their clients. Th e institutions were advised by the Panel to engage reputable contractors for their projects and where necessary involve Law Enforcement Agencies to recover sums paid to contractors for which services were not provided and also forward the names of such contractors to TETFund for blacklisting. On the part of the Fund, it would intensify regular monitoring of the projects and conduct snap visits periodically to ensure compliance. Library development intervention Most institutions do not have a Collection Development Policy (CDP) to guide their procurement of library holdings.
Their procurement of books is driven by Vendors who determine what books to supply them. When awarded the contracts for supply of the books, some of themclaim that the books are out of stock thereby demanding for price variations or replacement which TETFund does not entertain as a matter of policy.
Also, many of the institutions feign ignorance of the Funds guidelines of 70% of the allocation for this intervention to be used for books/ journals and 30% for Library equipment. The Panel insisted that all submission should be based on institutions Collection Development Policy (CDP). Academic staff training & development intervention Some of the institutions had not fully accessed this intervention because of challenges of staffi ng especially the newly established Universities.
Even if the institution were to massively recruit staff immediately, it is unlikely, going by their Conditions of Service and extant regulations, for them to be sponsored for training because of the rule that staff must be confi rmed which requires two (2) years of continuous service before qualification for such training. Another challenge was that some of the institutions were not familiar with the guidelines for this intervention.
Th ere were also long delays in submitting proposals to the Fund for consideration which led to the programmes being belated. Institutions were advised to abide strictly by TETFund Guidelines when making submissions for this intervention to the Fund in order to avoid back and forth communication which could lead to delays in processing their proposals. Conference attendance intervention TETfund guidelines provides that submission for this intervention which covers both Academic and Non-Academic staff must be submitted two (2) months before the Conference.
Most times proposals are submitted after this timeline which leads to the Conference being belated and therefore not approved. Also, institutions propose for their scholars to attend “scam” or 3rd party organized Conferences which are not admissible for funding. Institutions were informed that only proposals to attend Conferences organized by recognized professional bodies, learned Societies academic institutions, etc. will be entertained by the Fund. Academic research journal intervention Many Institutions proposed to spend substantial part of the allocations on indirect/ associated costs such as adverts, peer review, secretariat Services, etc.
knowing full well that these expenditures are not admissible for funding. TETFund only funds the production cost of three multi-Disciplinary Journals only. A good number of our benefi ciary institutions have only one journal produced annually to support, which makes it diffi cult to fully utilize the allocated funds. Some beneficiary institutions appeared unaware of the existence of this line of intervention. On this issue, the Panel advises that their Academic Staff be sensitized about this intervention and the relevant guidelines be made available to all relevant organs of the institutions. Academic manuscripts into books intervention There seems to be a general lack of information by the benefi ciary institutions on how to effectively draw down this intervention. In some instances, the quality of manuscripts were of serious concern.
It was also observed that some beneficiary Institutions allocated funds for inadmissible items such as secretariat services, peer review costs, etc. Many benefi ciary institutions did not know how to move forward with this line of intervention as they often waited for Academic staff to come up with proposals. Suggestions for the sensitization of staff on the existence of this line of intervention and commissioning of book projects by the institution were made by the Panel to the Institutions. Advocacy and publicity About 98% of the benefi ting institutions did not understand the utilization of this intervention and therefore could not access it. Th e objective of the intervention is to showcase the fruits of TETFund’s investments in the institutions for both tangible and intangible projects. Th e Panel recommended that the institutions should use the intervention to produce a compendium of all TETFund projects in glossy, well-packaged print for circulation to the stakeholders and to the Fund. Institution based research interventions It was observed that some of the scholars in the institutions were oblivious of the existence of this intervention thereby leading to poor access. Th e Panel advised that staff in the institutions be made aware of this intervention for which a small grant, to a maximum sum of N2million per research project, is provided and be encouraged to submit quality, grant-winning research proposals. Abuse of AST&D scholarship funds by scholars Scholars in some of the Institutions on the receipt of funds for their Masters or Ph.D. studies overseas simply misappropriated the funds without going for further studies or, in collaboration with their institutions changed their countries of study without the approval of TETFund. For example, a scholar who received funds to study in the United States of America where the Tuition fee and personal allowances was N30million would change the country of study to Uganda or Kenya where the tuition and living expenses is less than N10million. We have already instructed the aff ected institution to, within agreed period of time, recover the monies from these defrauding fellows.
