The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) is set to disburse N683 billion to Nigerian tertiary institutions following the approval granted by President Bola Tinubu.
This is twice the N320 billion disbursed to the institutions by the intervention agency in 2023.
The Executive Secretary of the Fund, Sonny Echono, disclosed this during a strategic planning meeting with heads of beneficiary institutions in Abuja on Friday, according to a copy of his speech obtained by this newspaper.
Mr Echono stated that 90.75 per cent of the sum is budgeted for direct disbursement and 8.94 per cent for some designated special projects while a stabilisation of 2.27 per cent is allowed to enable the Fund to respond to emerging issues.
The executive secretary also presented the allocation letters to the institutions, noting that; “I am pleased to inform you that we have kept our promise to constantly improve our operations and reduce processing time.”
Why funds increased
The TETFund boss noted that the increase was a result of the increase in education tax, which forms the source of funding for the government agency.
“It is pertinent to note that this represents a very significant increase above our last year’s intervention and indeed every other year, since inception,” Mr Echono said.
“This remarkable success is due to sustained efforts at expanding and increasing the efficiency of collection of the Education Tax, and the gracious concurrence of Mr President for an increase in the tax from 2.5 per cent to 3.0 per cent in the year 2023.”
The Nigerian government had increased the Education Tax paid by all Nigerian companies from 2.5 of their profits to 3 per cent when former President Muhammad Buhari signed the Finance Act 2023, a day before the end of his tenure in May 2023.
The Education Tax was previously at 2 per cent but was increased to 2.5 per cent in 2021 and to 3 per cent in 2023.
Breakdown
Mr Echono said each university will get N1.9 billion comprising N1.6 billion annual direct disbursement and N250 million zonal intervention fund.
He said each polytechnic will get N1.1 billion; N1 billion as annual direct disbursement and N150 million for zonal intervention fund.
Meanwhile, the colleges of education will get N1.3 billion each. For them, N1.2 billion is for annual direct disbursement and N150 million for zonal intervention.
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The increased funding may bring respite for the institutions which have for years clamoured for increased funding. Last year, most of the institutions increased the fees payable by students while insisting they did not introduce tuition. The fee hike, they say, was to help them augment the government’s meagre funding to manage the institutions.
Strategic planning meeting
Mr Echono said TETFUND has increased the allocation for the Special High Impact Programme (SHIP), and the number of benefitting institutions had also been increased to two per geopolitical zone for each category, giving a total of 36 beneficiary institutions.
He said SHIP is part of the Fund’s special direct disbursement. Others include provision for hostels using the public/private partnership arrangement, innovation hubs, disaster recovery, security infrastructure, and completion of abandoned projects, among others.
“In our bid to resolve the problems arising from the increase in exchange rates to our scholars, we have made provisions in the Year 2024 intervention to address the shortfall therein,” he noted.
He said the strategic planning meeting was an avenue to receive feedback from the institutions and evaluate the performance of their intervention lines.
The TETFund boss, therefore, called on the heads of institutions to ensure the judicious and timely utilisation of the 2024 intervention funds to make the much-needed impact in the respective tertiary institutions.
“I also wish to advise that in addition to the broad-based budget and project monitoring committee stated in your letter of allocation, you should consult widely with the community in the implementation of your TETFund projects,” he said.
He urged heads of institutions to ensure timely payments to contractors and vendors to enable the proper completion of projects and mitigate the incidence of contractors writing letters of complaints to the Fund.
Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.
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