WE ARE COMMITTED TO ENSURING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE NATION’S HIGHER INSTITUTIONS- SPEAKER 02-03-25
By Sadiq Aminu The Speaker House of Representatives, Dr. Tajudeen Abbas has reaffirmed the house’ commitment to ensuring accountability and transparency in the management of public funds.
Dr. Abbas stated this at the public hearing on the proposed amendments to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND.
Represented by the House majority Leader Professor Julius Ihonvbere, the Speaker explained that the focus of the amendment is on the provision of educational infrastructure and capacity building for academic staff of the Institutions.
He emphasized that TETFUND, is an intervention agency whose function was to provide support to all levels of public tertiary institutions in the country.
The Chairman of the committee, Rep. Mariam Onuoha said the intention of the bill was to correct rising issues of poor implementation of projects which left doubts on how much funds have been deployed and what projects have been carried out in the nation’s tertiary institutions.
Mrs. Onouha pointed out that stemming from the controversies and complains from stakeholders, the speaker recommended amendments to section 7 of the Act to strengthen the guidelines for accessing and utilisation the funds.
She said the views and submissions of the stakeholders would be considered in the report that will be produced at the end of the hearing.
In his remarks, the Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Mr Sonny Echono said that efforts were being made to ensure proper management of the fund.
Mr. Echono decried the indiscriminate establishment of tertiary institutions without proper funding plan especially by some state governments that banked on the fund.
The executive said that fund had come up with proper policy to ensure fairness in accessing the funds saying that only one university, a polytechnic and a college of education from each state can access funds in a year.