TETFund condemns poor use of funds by higher institutions

The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Professor Abdullahi Baffa Bichi, has decried poor utilization of library and manpower training funds by some tertiary institutions across the country.

Professor Bichi, who stated this while addressing management and staff of Bayero University Kano (BUK) recently, said it was unfortunate that the billions of naira spent on library and manpower development did not yield the expected results.

“The money we have allocated to the benefiting institutions for library development is more than enough for the beneficiaries to establish world-standard libraries. Unfortunately, the funds were poorly utilized with nothing on ground to show in terms of development.

“I have seen a request that was sent to the fund where a book that I know cost only N1, 500 was said to be procured at N150, 000. This is how some institutions are squandering public funds,” he said.

He, however, said the agency has resolved to review the procurement guidelines in order to bring sanity in the procurement processes.

Professor Bichi, who was at BUK to commission six projects executed by the university, also blamed some Nigerian universities for not sending their scholars to the appropriate institutions for training.

He said the first and second generations of Nigerian scholars got it right by getting their training at the appropriate universities, assuring that henceforth, the fund would not sponsor any scholar to study in a low ranking institution anywhere in the world.

“The fund must assess the country and university before sponsoring our scholars to study there. We are going to send our scholars to the best universities across the world for training,” he said.

Earlier, the Vice Chancellor of Bayero University Kano (BUK), Professor Muhammad Yahuza Bello, said the university has accessed and utilized all its allocations up to 2014, saying the institution is planning to assess the 2015 and 2016 allocations together.

The projects commissioned include Center for Infectious Diseases, Center for Advance Medical Research and Training both situated at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Law library, a block of 30 staff offices, classrooms and staff offices at the Faculty of Law, and gymnasium structure for sports.