N30b Tertiary Education Fund Lie Fallow -report reveal

Tertiary institutions have failed to utilise about 30 billion naira education funds for four years.
The money is in the accounts of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund)  since 2009 as heads of tertiary institutions continually fail to meet the requirements for accessing them.
This is contain in the 2013 annual report of the Federal Ministry of Education which also said states have failed to access N50 billion  Ubec funds for  the said period.
 According to the report Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education have not accessed over  30 billion naira allocated to them by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) from 2009 to 2012.
  According to the report, universities did not access 1.87 billion in 2009, 4.441 billion in 2010, 11.124billion in 2011 and 16.202 billion in 2012.
 The story is not different in the polytechnics which didn’t access 973.231 million in 2009, 1.826 billion in 2010, 6.101 billion in 2011 and 9.169 billion in 2012.
 The reports says the Colleges of Education also didn’t access 631 million in 2009, 2.845 billion in 2010, 5.18 billion in 2011 and 8.672 billion in 2012.
The institutions’ problems include non-conformity with strategic plans, lack of concept of design and planning, insufficient documentation, faulty observance of due process and poor project management skills.
The report said “It is unfortunate that heads of institutions could not take advantage of the fund to improve the quality of their institutions. The Federal Ministry of Education, implores governing councils to take this issue as priority and ensure that all outstanding funds are accessed and utilised.
“It will also consider possible sanctions to force tertiary institutions to promptly access  their funds  with TETFund and other agencies.”
The spokesman of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Ibrahim Usman Yakasai said, “Any institution that fails to meet the requirement cannot access its funds.”
A source in the University of Abuja said poor proposal was among the factors preventing institutions from accessing their funds.
“There is no way the Federal Government can release the fund to an institution that presented poor proposal. The Federal Government has its priorities,” he said.

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