The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Professor Suleiman Elias Bogoro has revealed that the sum of N359 billion was withdrawn in 2013 from the account of the Fund without due process.
He spoke while responding to questions from members of the Federal House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Institutions and Services Tuesday in Abuja during their oversight visit to the Fund.
When making clarification on the missing fund, the TETFund boss said the management had to file various 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 N359bn 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 bn 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 that there has been a paradigm shift by investing more 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 that are considered very important.
“We have to invest in the human capital through academic staff training and development. We have sponsored over 26000 for PhD and Maste’r 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 stressed that the research and development and centre of excellence department of the Fund had been supervising the utilisation of the approved grant.
“Recently we approved 128 research grants and we are hoping if Mr President approves a proposal that has been made by the Board of Trustees for an increase in the research grant, it will have a positive impact on the sector.
“We are therefore positive that we are likely to have an increment in that amount and with this, there is an increasing awareness in the system that our universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education cannot continue to emphasize teaching at the expense of research.
“That is the new area where we are investing massively. For some time now TETFund had been associated with merely building and we are saying that we want a paradigm shift. This is not to say that we will stop physical infrastructure.
“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.
