N100Bn Tertiary Education Trust Fund 'Begging' To Be Spent

Over N100 billion provided for the infrastructural development of Nigerian tertiary institution under the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has been so far left unaccessed.

A South-West Zone member of the TETFund Board of Trustees, Mrs Anna Kolawole, spoke on the sidelines of a two-day Interactive Workshop on TETfund Guidelines for Accessing Intervention Funds held at the University of Lagos (UNILAG).

Money Lying Fallow

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Kolawole said the board is disturbed by the trend.

"We are here to find the way forward on what can be the possible obstacle in accessing funds that have been specifically earmarked for the development of our tertiary institutions.

"We are worried by the fact that these funds are lying fallow in the coffers unaccessed.

"Yet, there is always this public outcry of underfunding of the education sector, especially the tertiary institutions," she said.

Kolawole also revealed that the board is not creating bottlenecks in the process of accessing the funds.

"I do not know what is actually stopping administrators of our tertiary institutions from accessing these funds because it is not that we are asking for collateral or Certificates of Occupancy or even guarantors,” she said.

Finding A Way Forward

The Chairman, Board of Trustees of TETFund, Dr Musa Babayo, revealed that the main problem causing delay in accessing funds is the improper proposal documentation and incomplete renditions of returns on the part of the beneficiary institutions’ management.

In search of a way forward, he said the board had after numerous meetings "decided that something has to be done."

"Consequently, we have directed the management to study all the processes developed over time with a view to harmonizing and streamlining them into one concise set of guidelines to be presented in a booklet form.

"The set of guidelines so developed must be agreeable to all stakeholders."

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) was established as an intervention agency in 2011 and charged with the responsibility for managing, disbursing and monitoring the education tax to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.