Executes over 10,000 projects nationwide
By SADIQ ABUBAKAR, Maiduguri –
The Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of Tertiary Education Fund (TETFund), Kashim Ibrahim-Imam on Monday disclosed that between 2019 and 2021, the fund has disbursed over N300 billion as interventions fund in about 226 tertiary institutions across the country for infrastructural development projects, academic researches among others.
Ibrahim-Iman, stated this during the TETFund /FIRS 2021 Joint Interactive Forum held in Maiduguri, with the theme: “Improving EDT Collection in the Post Pandemic Era.
“Our performance, impact is visible in every institution, particularly in University of Maiduguri, State University, Ramat Polytechnic, and three college of education in Waka Biu, Maiduguri and Bama. Others include Nigerian Army University in Biu and the newly approved Federal Polytechnic Monguno which was given a take off grant of N2 billion.
“We have also completed various projects while some are ongoing in many tertiary institutions across the country as there is no tertiary institution that we have visited that does not have at least minimum of 50 completed and ongoing projects fully funded by TETFund and I want to assure all the institutions that we are going to do much more than what we have done in the past as we expect increase in the 2022 TETFund budget”.
He noted that in the past 10 years, TETFund has successfully trained more than 30,000 lecturers across the country for masters and PhD programmes locally and internationally.
“In 2021 alone, the budget of TETFund was about N300 billion and each public tertiary institution in the county was accessed with an overall budget of about N900 million, each polytechnic was accessed in excess of N800 million, while the Colleges Of Education were accessed in excess of N700 million”.
”We have about 226 tertiary institutions on our records as at the last count in December 2021 and we are still counting more this year 2022. For academic staff training and research development, each university accessed about N150 million, polytechnic and Colleges of Education N120 million each in 2021”.
Iman explained that the interactive forum with the FIRS was organized to consolidate and harmonious working relationship and further improve on strategic tax collection towards achieving the TETFund mandate to every public tertiary institution in Nigeria.
“Tetfund is however committed to building the education sector through training of the academic staff and building of projects to make teaching and learning more conducive in the country”, he said.
He further added that there was a need for the various tertiary institutions to examine and evaluate the costs effectiveness of their staff training abroad and resolved to look inward for more staff to be trained locally given the challenges of the depreciating value of naira to foreign currencies and COVID-19 pandemic.
The Executive Chairman, Federal Internal Revenue Service (FIRS), Alh. Muhammad M. Nami represented by the Group Coordinating Director, General Tax Operations, FIRS, said the organization has impressively done it best in generating revenue higher than its target both in 2019, 2020 and 2021 despite the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic.
He however called on all Nigerians and tax stakeholders to put all hands on deck for collective and proper tax payments and collections across board towards improving socio economic and political activities of government , especially, education which takes 85% while the Federal Government takes only 15% of the revenue generated annually by the FIRS.
The Executive Chairman noted that the joint interactive forum of TETFUND and FIRS was purposely aimed at strengthening and fostering the existing harmonious relationship as well exchange ideas on how best the two bodies can improve their services to Nigerians.
Nami added that in the last year, FIRS generated N6.4 trillion higher than its budget proposal or target of N5.4 trillion for the first time and very impressive so far, pointing out that all was as a result of improved improved withholding tax, VAT, Company tax, Technology tax, etc .
He also stressed the need the adoption of online tax registration for tax clearance certificate which was introduced last year in 2021 towards increasing revenue base of the federal government.
The Executive Chairman further maintained that the improvement drive informed the showcasing of achievements of FIRS to the participants which is important to give tax apparatus for VAT, company tax, education tax, technology tax and withholding tax among others .
He also commended the BOT Chairman, TETFund for executing gigantic projects out of the revenue mobilized by the FIRS, while urging Nigerians to promptly.pay their taxes in order to achieve the mandate of provision of infrastructures by the government.
On his part, the Executive Secretary, TETFund, Prof Suleiman Elias Bogoro disclosed that no fewer than 1,127 lecturers have been trained from various tertiary institutions by TETfund at the cost of over N5 billion to date.
Prof. Bogoro noted that TETFund has invested over N161 billion for staff training and over N32 billion for conference attendance and teaching practice.
He noted that: “Out of this investment, we have trained both local and international more than 30,000 academic staff across the country.
“We also sponsored over 68 conference attendants and over 79, 000 for teaching practice outings. The essence of the exercise cannot be over emphasized because there has never been an attempt since inception by the fund to look at all its interventions to tertiary institutions.
Some beneficiaries of the programme scholarships from University of Maiduguri and others applauded TETFund for its support and encouragement.
Highlights of the event include presentations by the Executive Chairman, FIRS and Executive Secretary, TETFUND, photographs, question and answers, comments and contributions from the participants as well as tour of tertiary institutions within Maiduguri city by the participants.
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