TETFUND completes all its projects- Acting Secretary

 TETFUND achieves completion of all projects via thorough monitoring.

The Acting Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND, Aliyu Na’iya, on Friday at the ongoing 2013 ministerial platform said the organisation ensures that all its projects are completed.

“I can assure you today that there is no abandoned TETFUND project anywhere in the country,” Mr. Na’iya said.

Mr. Na’iya said TETFUND achieves this through monitoring of projects and having a systematic procedure of releasing funds before during and long after completion of education projects.

“When a project is contracted, 50 per cent of the funds for construction project is released, we monitor the project when due, then we release 35 per cent and the remaining 15 per cent is released after a period of six months or rainy season to make sure the project can stand the test of time,” he said.

Mr. Na’iya said that in its effort to improve access to quality education, TETFUND has sponsored a total of 6, 840 academic staff. The staff, he said, benefitted from staff training and development with 1, 700 of them studying outside Nigeria. Mr. Na’iya said 101 presidential scholarships was awarded to graduates for innovation and development to study in 25 top universities in the world.

Amongst TETFUND achievements, Mr. Na’iya listed the sponsorship of 84 academic journal publications and 22 manuscript developments. He said N3 billion seed grant was set aside to serve as research fund to encourage institution based research.

“Also a total of 5, 999 conference attendance where academic staff are sponsored to various place in the world for interaction with other colleagues to gain ideas and bring this ideas back home,” he said.

Mr. Na’iya said TETFUND strictly monitors the academic staff project to ensure that sponsored staff from various institutions do their projects. He said the fund availability for projects is in a 2:1:1 ratio for universities, polytechnics and colleges of education respectively.

He said that the challenges the organization faces range from inability of beneficial institutions to attain a sound project management practice as well as the use of TETFUND money for core mandate including building of laboratories.