JOHN ONAH, Abuja
Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has frowned at the numbers of abandoned projects in the higher institutions across the nation after reasonable funds had been allocated to contractors handing such projects.
Executive Secretary of the Fund, Professor Sulieman Bogoro, noted the ugly situation when the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFund paid an oversight visit to the headquarters in Abuja.
Bogoro, who was reacting to questions from members of the committee, expressed regrets that authorities of institutions, had allowed contractors to delay projects, which resulted to increment as a result of exchange in value.
He said about 90 per cent of projects in some institutions, were not completed, while others were outrightly abandoned.
While blaming institution managements for the spate, he said in some cases, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupts Practices and related Offences Commission (ICPC), had queried the Fund, just as some defaulters had been sent to jail.
He said a committee would soon be put in place to look into cases of abandoned or uncompleted projects in all federal and state universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, where the Fund had committed finances into.
He told the House of Representatives committee that besides structural intervention in the institutions, the Fund had now extended its services to journal publication, conference attendance, foreign sponsorship of academic staff and of recent, research and development.
Bogoro said the President, Muhammadu Buhari, had approved a N5bn grant for research and development, stating that tremendous achievements had been recorded since the commencement of the project.
The chairman, House of Representative Committee, Hon Sulieman Aminu Boro, had said that they were in the Fund as parts of the routine oversight function created in the constitutions for them to carry out.
He said they were not in the Fund for witch-hunting, but to examine areas of challenges that could be recommended for improvement, assuring that they would go back and study documents presented by the Fund for recommendation to the government.
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