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From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) said on Friday that N3.8 billion was spent on 1,500 Nigerian scholars engage in different academic programmes abroad.
Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, disclosed the information during an oversight visit to the Fund by the House of Representatives Committee on TETFund in Abuja led by its Chairman, Honourable Miriam Onuoha.
He hinted the lawmakers that remittance processes for Nigerian scholars abroad in the past was with some faults, but necessary corrections have been effected in the system for better experience.
He also told the lawmakers that the expenditure was a bailout fund to cushion the effect of the exchange rate of the naira under its academic training programme.
He said: “High exchange rate caused some challenges for TETFund-sponsored scholars recently forcing us to make extra financial provision for them. The issue also resulted in a significant drop in the number of beneficiaries of the Fund’s academic training programme in foreign institutions.
“But we now pay directly to the institution as part of our intervention. CBN transfers the funds in bulk to different institutions for those scholars. So far, we have taken care of 1500 scholars with a total of N3.8 billion expended. We identify a cut-off point for those who will be eligible for the scholarship.”
The TETFund boss, who commended the Honourable Miriam Onuoha-led Reps’ Committee, also reeled out various projects and interventions of the agency that are fast making positive impacts in the country.
He told them that collections from education tax in 2020 was N257 billion, and by 2021, the fund received a sharp decline in the tax collection of N185.5 billion.
Chairman of the Committee, Miriam Onuoha, in her remarks, explained that the purpose of the oversight visit was to see how the Agency had performed in the 2022–2023 budget, in line with the budgetary provision.
Onuoha noted that, in line with the function of the committee, it must ensure that allocations made to TETFund are used judiciously.
She, however, expressed concern about the situation where funds meant for tertiary institutions were not accessed by those they were meant for, thus urging relevant government bodies as well as state governors to use their instrumentality of office to ensure that heads of institutions comply with TETFund on accessing their funds.
