The federal government has approved N208 billion as the 2019 intervention funds for public institutions across the country.
The re-instated TETFund Executive Secretary, Suleiman Bogoro, made this known at Thursday’s annual meeting with TETFund officials and beneficiary institutions in Abuja.
According to Mr. Bogoro, each university was given the annual direct disbursement of N826.7 million, N566.7 million was given to each polytechnic and N542.2 million was given to each College of Education in Nigeria.
According to the website of the National Universities Commission, Nigeria has 43 federal universities and 48 state universities.
Mr Bogoro also said that most of the Nigerian institution’s structures are built from TETfund interventions.
“Education intervention has been consistent despite the fall in oil price. We spent nearly one hour with the board discussing this issue of increasing number of beneficiary institutions so much so that application of the funds are being whittled (down) and so the impact is reducing day by day,” he said.
Mr Bogoro expressed concern about the increasing number of government tertiary institutions “and their effect on the application of funds provided.”
“Eighteen institutions across the six geopolitical zones are beneficiaries of the Special High Impact Intervention. Six universities, six polytechnics and six colleges of education received N1 billion each,” he said.
Mr Bogoro said that the problems of decreasing norms in scholarship schemes and stranded scholars have been revisited.
“Pivotal payment has commenced for stranded TETfund scholars. We even told the head of institutions that we might not release any fund until we sort the stranded scholars. Since we started about three months ago, the number has risen to 400,” he said.
Mr Bogoro also advised desk officers to stop “making demands” from institutional scholars.
He frowned at institutions that diverted funds intended for programs.
Mr Bogoro spoke about the allegation that led to his suspension in 2015 “President Buhari has investigated the allegation and vindicated him”.
Also speaking at the event, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Abubakar Rasheed, said there are more beneficiary institutions in 2019 than previous years.
He said this is because more state and federal institutions have been created.
Mr Rasheed, who is also the acting chairman of TETfund Board of Trustees, said, there is a need for more efficient administration of the funds.
He urged all the heads of institutions to work with transparency and openness.
“We hate a situation, as we have seen in this assessment, where sometimes a Vice-Chancellor will not send a Deputy Vice-Chancellor or Registrar or Bursar or any other principal officer even director of works or procurement, but will send his personal assistant to be the one handling the TETfund issues or needs assessment issues. Such transactions will not be tolerated,” he said.