'N2.5trn injected in varsities, others in 10 years' - TETFund

Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), yesterday, said it has invested over N2.5 trillion in infrastructures, academic training of lecturers and other developmental interventions in public tertiary institutions in Nigeria in the last 10 years.

A statement from TETFund indicated that its Board of Trustees Chairman, Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, disclosed the information in Lagos during the third edition of Tax Payers’ Forum with the theme: TETFund Intervention: Catalyst for Transforming Tertiary Education in Nigeria, where he promised to ensure intervention to the beneficiary institutions increased by 50 per cent next year and 100 per cent in two years.

He disclosed the agency is targeting more than N500 billion in education tax collection by 2023, thus soliciting the support of stakeholders involved in the exercise, particularly the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) on increasing the education tax collection to N500 billion in the next two years.

Ibrahim-Imam disclosed that TETFund budgeted N300 billion for several interventions in over 226 higher institutions across the country in 2021, in addition to more than N30 billion that was set aside for academic staff training in the various institutions across the country.

He said the Board of Trustees of TETFund recently approved the construction of 160,000 additional bed spaces in the institutions across the country in response to the challenges of acute shortage of hostels in universities.

Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, who was represented by the Pro-chancellor of the University of Benin, Sonny Kuku, commended the stakeholders for their contributions, assuring them of the government’s determination to transform the entire landscape of public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Executive Secretary of TETFund, Suleiman Bogoro, said the meeting served as a platform to honour and identify individuals and companies that have made tremendous contributions to education through the consistent payment of education tax, thus contributing to the development of education and, by extension, that of the entire nation.

He said two per cent of education tax is remitted annually by companies through the FIRS to TETFund for allocation and onward disbursement to beneficiary institutions across the country.

Bogoro said the education tax over the years has been channelled into different activities and areas in line with the TETFund mandate as enshrined in its establishment Act.

He said: “Infrastructure has been given special attention in this regard, because of its decay and collapse across public tertiary institutions in Nigeria at the onset. Between January to December 2020, we carried out 16,982 various infrastructure projects across beneficiary institutions.

“Considering the projects carried out since inception, based on annual allocation to institutions over the years, 2011 to 2021, it is estimated that 152,838 various infrastructure projects have been carried out across various public tertiary institutions.

“These projects include construction of lecture theatres, classrooms, hostels, offices, laboratories, road networks and fencing of institutions in different parts of the country. Tertiary institutions across the country are dotted with TETFund projects which bear the insignia of the Fund distinctly inscribed on each project.”