VCs who divert TETFUND grant should be jailed :ASUU

 

According to Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, any vice chancellor who misuses the grant provided to their institution by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund is deserving of imprisonment.

Noting that some TETFund-funded projects were implemented late due to improper administration of the funds, he suggested that the Federal Government establish a panel to investigate the use of such funds.

Sonny Echono, the TETFund's executive secretary, announced in Abuja on Wednesday that N320 billion had been authorized by the president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret.), as an intervention fund for public tertiary education institutions in 2023.

He stated that the meeting was a chance to get feedback and assess the effectiveness of its intervention lines in order to improve a more robust delivery of the agency's mandate at the yearly strategic planning workshop with all heads of beneficiary institutions.

He claims that N1,154,732,133 will be given to each public university, N699,344,867 to each polytechnic, and N800,862,602 to each institution of education.

The vice chancellors should be held accountable for explaining why they are unable to retire the funds, and if they didn't do what they were supposed to do, jail them, the ASUU President stated in a conversation with our correspondent on Friday. Even if the VC mismanages the fund, Nigeria's money is wasted because the money from the university is deposited elsewhere and its worth is decreased.

"In certain colleges, monies will build over a four- or five-year period with a declining value. Visit colleges to find out. If you look at the TETFUND projects' dates, you'll find either 2012 or 2013, although they were finished in 2023. A difference of more than five years has passed, yet no one has been punished, and even if judicial panels were sent, their results would not have been made public. These are the issues the system is dealing with right now.

"On these grounds, we went on strike and demanded that the government create a panel to examine how the institutions are using the cash, and we had to compel them through a strike action. They have been working on the report for more than two years.

When asked what effect the FG's N320,345,040,835 intervention fund for public tertiary education institutions would have on the industry, Osodeke responded that TETFund should make sure the money was distributed properly.

As it has done from the system's inception, he continued, "It will improve the system. It is not a funding mechanism; it is an intervention by a company that pays taxes and by a government body. The Federal Government needs to take action on its own. This TETFUND money will have a significant impact if it is carefully controlled and distributed, which it is not currently.

Some colleges have not used their TETFUND funds in the last three to four years because the rule states that you cannot utilize the new fund until the old one has been retired. The 2019 TETFund is still being worked on by certain colleges, thus the funds are simply being wasted there.

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