The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Professor Suleiman Elias Bogoro, has said that he was too focused on delivering patriotic service to the nation that no amount of speculation and malice can distract his attention from serving his country.
He stated this in an interview when a team of editors from Blueprint Newspapers paid him a courtesy visit in the Fund’s corporate headquarters in Abuja Monday.
He said he was used to Premium Times’ antics because it had once gone out to talk about ATBU Bauchi and the unqualified contractors being used by the institution which were all proved to be false. He said he would not pre-empt them but his joy was that they were talking about a particular contract organisation by registration and performance and wondered why they could associate them with non-performance.
“Premium Times talked about federation account. For your information, I tell you outrightly that they were wrong. They should do their homework thoroughly next time. They should not tell lies just because they wanted to malign somebody. TETFund fund is not from the federation account. Go and check our law.
“The protocol is simple. The management packages the budget and send it to the Board of Trustees (BOT). That is the position of the law. It is our BOT that manages TETFund on behalf of the federal government. The TETFund Act of 2011 stipulates that the BOT sends our budget to the Minister of Education who if he recommends it, sends it to the president. If he wants amendments he points out where they are to be done. And if the president approves, it comes back to TETFund for implementation,”
Bogoro said people forget about how Education Tax Fund (ETF) and (TETFund) came about, saying it was the innovative outcome of good thinking by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) between 1990 and 1992.
The TETFund boss said that they signed the agreement in 1993 in the struggle which he was physically involved.
“We made sure the law was cast in a way to avoid bureaucracy and other factors that may affect the utilisation of the fund. TETFund Act stipulates that its budget goes to the president not National Assembly. Those who talk about the federation account do not even know the laws of TETFund. They are talking about somebody else, but because they wanted to malign TETFund, they brought in its name.
“One of the media men that left said they had seen the report of NEITI but they did not take out TETFund. But someone focused on TETFund negatively. It is about agencies that are definitely under performing, which we know.”
Bogoro said the main reason why ASUU negotiated with the federal government to establish TETFund was ‘the dilapidated and decrepit infrastructure” in universities. He said at that time in 1990, brain-drain was at its highest, so university lecturers were leaving the country in droves. He gave instances when first class graduates instead of going to teach in the university preferred to go to the bank or oil sector.
“Then there were no even offices for lecturers. Laboratory reagents were not there not to talk of equipment. It was a depressing environment. I knew because I was involved. I became a foundation graduate assistant at Federal University of Technology (ATBU) Bauchi, after my national service. So I know no other place than the university community. We who wear the shoes know where it pinches.
“For somebody to say that we have no operational guideline and accountability is unfortunate. Sometimes I wonder if those guys were from the moon. Let them go to Auditor-General of the Federation or Accountant-General. “As recent as two weeks ago I met one of the top guys that monitored us here. He said ‘well done’ to us. I don’t know where these guys got their story.”
He said TETFund management may not be perfect because they are not angels, presiding over Nigerian public service, but TETFund had never claimed that they were perfect.
“But for God’s sake, we should be given credit. Go to any tertiary institution you had visited 10 years back and tell me if there are no remarkable differences in terms of infrastructures. Tetfund’s name was so manifest that people jocularly said we should change higher schools names to TETFund.
“We just inaugurated, about a month ago impact assessment committee for self evaluation. Tell me which government agency has ever done that. We should be given credit as it amounts to self-assessment. All the Technical Advisory Committee members on Impact Assessment (TACIA) are not TETFund staff. So we are open enough.
Bogoro said TETFund is an exceptionally impactful intervention agency in Nigeria. He said about six African countries had come to understudy the TETFund model, the secret behind which is the effectiveness of its management
“That takes us to the original idea from ASUU. ASUU felt that the annual budgetary system had failed the nation. So they drew up a non-budgetary funding window from two per cent deductible tax from profit-making entities. That is what TETFund is all about.
“Money goes to our central education pool account before they post it to our project accounts and inform us. We cannot spend it without due process. Our law stipulates that. Neither the Board, the Accountant-General nor the Auditor-General has queried us that we had not been doing the right thing .I don’t know how somebody who does not even know the law of TETFund would sit and speculate in his bedroom and tells the world lies.”
According to Premium Times, an online medium of October 7, NEITI has accused TETFund management of misappropriating the sum of N993.3bn from 2013- 2016.
