Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has said that Cost of materials, Covid-19 and other disruptions were responsible for slow pace of intervention projects in the nation’s tertiary institutions. But the Fund said it has secured the commitment of the Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu, to make special provision in its future allocation to tackle the difficulties it is experiencing delay.
TETFund’s Executive Secretary, Sonny Echono, stated this on Wednesday day, while hosting the chairman of the Governing Council and Pro-Chancellor of the Benue State University, Sebastine Hon and other top management staff of the institution who were on a courtesy visit to him.
Echono said his organisation had undertaken a comprehensive review of all outstanding projects with a view to working on those that are near completion.
“We have projects that commenced but because of fluctuations in prices of important building materials, because of the delay associated with the Covid lockdown and other disruption to other economic activities we now have both time and cost overhead and the earlier we address this the better for our country as we will not have abandoned projects litering round our campuses.
“I have earlier given the directive that as a matter of policy, we have undertaken a comprehensive review of all of our outstanding projects with a view to bringing those that are close to completion, speedy completion through the various strategies we have identified…I am also pleased to inform you that we have secured the concurrence of the Honourable Minister of Education that from next year, we will have a special provision in our allocations for the completion of all ongoing projects,” Echono said.
The Executive Secretary said TETFund has a very high rate of completion of projects, and promised that the Fund would also look into the request for special intervention on the BSU library that was affected by storm through its Stability Fund.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of Governing Board of the Benue State University, acknowledged TETFund for committing about N7 billion to its various intervention projects in Benue State University,(BSU) Makurdi, from 1999 to date.
While congratulating Echono on his appointment as TETFund boss, Hon commended President Muhammadu Buhari over his choice, even as he described the Executive Secretary as “one of our illustrious alumni, having graduated with a degree in MBA in Management from our University.”
