House Mulls TETFUND Act Amendment To Enable Lagos State Tertiary Institutions Access N4.4bn

By BENJAMIN OMOIKE

LAGOS, Nigeria – There are strong indications that the House of Representatives will amend the Act establishing the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).

This amendment to the Act is becoming necessary to review the regulations which have hampered some institutions from accessing the funds to aid development in tertiary institutions.

This was disclosed by the Chairman House Committee on TETFUND, Princess Miriam Onuoha, while on an oversight visit to Lagos State at the State House, Alausa, Ikeja.

Recall that the Lagos State tertiary institutions including Lagos State University, LASU, had failed to access not less than N4.4 billion of the funds between 2017 to 2023.

With this development, the House Committee which has taken it upon itself to tinker with the regulations, said the funds are meant to be accessed to bridge technology gap.

Aside, the regulations, one other factor responsible for not accessing the funds was due to coronavirus pandemic which affected educational activities during the period.

The House Committee Chairman also led other members on a courtesy visit to the state Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

While receiving the committee, Governor Sanwo-Olu appealed to the National Assembly to increase the TETFUND allocation for the State, saying since Lagos now enjoys three different universities as against one it used to have.

Addressing newsmen, Onuoha said, “Myself and the committee alongside the relevant department and agency of the TETFUND and a team of consultants made up a technical team, we are here on a working visit to the Lagos State governor and his cabinet.

“To intimate them about the accumulated unaccessed TETFUND intervention for affected institutions from 2017 to 2023.

“The committee embarked on its annual oversight to the TETFUND agency in the course of our job we found out that some institutions were behind in accessing the TETFUND intervention with government allocated to build  infrastructural gap in the tertiary institutions.

“From an extraordinary general committee meeting, the committee resolved to work with TETFUND and tartiary institutions to ensure that the impediment which has given rise to this intervention is relaxed accumulating.

“This intervention and allocations has been made over the years has begun to erode its value owing to the inflationary trend. We hope that they comply with this team, the money will be released to them.

“In our engagement with head of institutions the Vice-Chancellor of the Lagos State University and Polytechnic including the commissioner for education.

“We are looking at challenges , the TETFUND intervention doesn’t come just with a matching grant, it comes also with guidelines but beneficiaries must meet up to ensure compliance.

“We are reviewing with institutions about the challenges they have been having, there are nine items to do with physical infrastructure, research and development, staff and maintenance.

“I would have thought that the challenge was only for physical infrastructure but to see also that we have unaccessed funding for research, procurement of equipment to bridge technology gap. It means that we need to sit up and use this intervention that has been allocated for Nigerian students and Nigeria’s institutions as it were. Tax payers money should be put to judicious use.

“For Lagos State owned institutions close to N2 billion has not been accessed, we are still working to get the specifics. We just don’t want to reel out the amount but to ensure that those impediments are relaxed. We want to ensure that cumilatively all the funds is accessed from 2017 to 2023.

“We are here to support the tartiary institutions to recoup even if the value of funds have dropped due to inflation, whatever needs to be done to access this funding will be done.

“Like I said to you this is a mobile clinic we are deploying a diplomatic approach to put tax payers money into good use,” the Chairman stated.

In his reaction, the Lagos State Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Hon Tolani Sule said, “We are really grateful to house Committee chairman and other honourable members for this step they have taken. Most of our institutions have not been accessing these funds because of their regulations that prove difficult and they have assured us that they will go back and see how this regulations can be tinkered with to make the funds accessment easier. 

“This is the major reason for not accessing the fund. These are institutions that will not want to lose funds.

“Thank God for this interaction, it has given the House Committee the opportunity to know what these institutions are passing through. During COVID, almost all institutions activities went low so the institutions could not access some funds. This is the conversation we are having today I know we will shoot upward in accessing those funds.”