Falana: Administrators of Tertiary Institutions Criminally Diverted N250bn TETFund

Says N463bn TETFund not accessed Seeks review of guidelines to access the fund

Gboyega Akinsanmi

A human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana, yesterday alleged that some unscrupulous administrators of public tertiary institutions in the country had criminally diverted no less than N250 billion education intervention fund from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).

Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), also alleged that the administrators were able to divert the fund criminally with the connivance of the former board members of the TETFUND.

He made the allegations at the 20th Delegates Conference of ASUU held at the Tafawa Balewa University in Bauchi State, although commended the union for the initiative which led to the enactment of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) Act in 1992.

The National Assembly had in 2011 amended the TETFund (Establishment) Act, thereby charging it with the responsibility for managing, disbursing and monitoring the education tax to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

To achieve these objectives, the TETFund Act imposes two per cent education tax on the assessable profit of all registered companies in Nigeria to support the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education owned by the federal and state governments.

At the conference, the senior advocate attributed the diversion to the failure of the staff and student unions in different tertiary institution to monitor the fund over the years

He assured that the bulk of the stolen fund would be recovered by the anti-corruption agencies, which according to him, were currently probing the fraud.

He urged the TETFUND “to stop imposing a ban on institutions from accessing the fund because some past administrators failed to render account of the monies collected by them.”

He also asked the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to ensure that the N463 billion education intervention set aside in the Central Bank of Nigeria to support the country’s public tertiary institutions.

Falana lamented that the tertiary institutions did not access N250 billion from the intervention fund between 2011 and 2016 and that a whopping sum of N213.4 billion was still outstanding for 2017.

Specifically, the senior advocate disclosed that at least 78 public universities “are entitled to about 50 per cent of the total sum of N463 billion in the TETFUND Account.”

He urged the TETFUND board to review the cumbersome guidelines for accessing the fund while calling on the ASUU and other campus unions to monitor the collection of the education tax, the disbursement and management of the intervention fund by the authorities of tertiary institutions.

Instead of imposing collective punishment on the innocent staff and students of such institutions, Falana said TETFUND should submit the names of such administrators “to the police and the anti graft agencies for investigation and possible prosecution.”

Without the intervention of the TETFUND, Falana noted that the public tertiary institutions would have collapsed since successive governments in the country “have paid lip service to the funding of education.

“As the various governments have failed to make provision for capital projects in public schools, the TETFUND has become the only source of funding infrastructural development and research in all the public tertiary institutions.

“If the TETFUND can make available N213 in 2017 alone, the establishment has the capability to make a greater impact on the public tertiary institutions if the education tax is effectively collected and monitored.”

Falana made a strong case for the involvement of all stakeholders in the collection of the education tax, tasking the ASUU “to deploy its intellectual resources to collate information of all companies that are liable to pay the education tax as less than 50 percent of all companies operating in the country are currently paying the tax.

He urged the ASUU “to collaborate with the Federal Inland Revenue Service for effective collection of the education tax. Having fought for the enactment ASUU has a legitimate right and moral duty to ensure that the law is well implemented.”