By Johnbosco Agbakwuru
TERTIARY Education Trust Fund, TETFund, has released about N1 trillion intervention fund to public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education for project development and content-based intervention in the last five years, Executive Secretary, Dr. Abdullahi Baffa, has said.
Baffa, who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja, also said the agency had made it compulsory for benefiting institutions to defend their project proposal before funds would be released to them to ensure effective utilisation.
He noted that TETFund embarked on Access Clinic/Project defence proposal which lasted two months for the beneficiary institutions.
According to him, the beneficiary institutions that made presentations at the Access Clinic/Project Proposal defence, based on the 2016 allocation, were 181 in number, including 74 universities, 50 polytechnics and 57 colleges of education. He explained that the main aim of the clinic was to discuss, diagnose and remedy all encumbrances so as to enable the institutions fulfill the requirements to access funds.
Baffa also noted that there were some impediments affecting access to the intervention funds, adding that about 98 percent of the benefiting institutions did not understand the utilization of the intervention and, therefore, could not access it.
He said: “There seems to be a general lack of information by the beneficiary institutions on how to effectively draw down this intervention. In some instances, the quality of manuscripts were of serious concern. “It was also observed that some beneficiary institutions allocated funds for inadmissible items such as secretariat services, peer review costs, etc.
“Many beneficiary institutions did not know how to move forward with this line of intervention as they often waited for academic staff to come up with proposals.
“Suggestions for the sensitization of staff on the existence of this line of intervention and commissioning of book projects by the institution were made by the panel to the institutions.
“About 98% of the benefiting institutions did not understand the utilization of this intervention and therefore could not access it. The objective of the intervention is to showcase the fruits of TETFund’s investments in the institutions for both tangible and intangible projects.
“The Panel recommended that the institutions should use the intervention to produce a compendium of all TETFund projects in glossy, well-packaged print for circulation to the stakeholders and to the Fund.
“After receipt of first tranche of money from the Fund, some beneficiaries unduly delay payment to contractors. Also some contractors refuse to mobilize to site after receiving mobilization fees.
“A greater part of the project cycle is spent on the Beneficiary pursuing the contractors to mobilize to site. In some cases, the contractors delay execution of the projects on the ground of price changes due to foreign exchange fluctuations despite signing fixed contracts with their clients.
“The institutions were advised by the Panel to engage reputable contractors for their projects and where necessary involve Law Enforcement Agencies to recover sums paid to contractors for which services were not provided and also forward the names of such contractors to TETFund for blacklisting. On the part of the Fund, it would intensify regular monitoring of the projects and conduct snap visits periodically to ensure compliance.”
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