Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Dr. Abdullahi Bichi Baffa has identified factors that have been hindering the smooth administration of the Fund to the nation’s universities and other higher institutions.
Dr. Baffa, who spoke to news men in Abuja today, Saturday, said that non-compliance with the Public Procurement Act of 2007, lack of knowledge of TETFund Intervention Guidelines and wrong Priorities by Benefiting Institutions are some of the negative factors.
He also identified common issues impeding access to the intervention funds by benefiting institutions to include undue delay of payment to contractors by some beneficiaries after receipt of first tranche of money from TETFund; refusal by some contractors to mobilize to site after receiving mobilization fees and; a general lack of information by the beneficiary institutions on how to effectively draw down this intervention, while most institutions do not have a Collection Development Policy (CDP) to guide their procurement of library holdings.
According to the TETFund boss, while it was observed that some of the scholars in the institutions were oblivious of the existence of this intervention thereby leading to poor access, many of the institutions had not fully accessed the intervention because of challenges of staffing, especially the newly established Universities.
He added that most times, proposals are submitted after the timeline which leads to the Conference being belated and therefore not approved.
He said also that about 98 percent of the benefiting institutions do not understand the utilization of the intervention and therefore could not access it, while scholars in some of the institutions on the receipt of funds for their Masters or Ph.D. studies overseas simply misappropriated the funds without going for further studies or, in collaboration with their institutions changed their countries of study without the approval of TETFund.
Dr. Baffa said that despite such negative factors, he is determined to continue to improve the quality of tertiary education in Nigeria and to make them globally competitive through execution of its mandates.
He said that, the Fund has resolved to place premium on regular and effective monitoring of projects embarked upon by the beneficiaries and ensure that there is accountability and value for money.
He noted that both the Access Clinic and Project proposal Defense, which held from 6th March-26th April 2017, afforded the Fund the opportunity to appreciate the challenges facing the institutions in implementing its interventions and to re-examine its processes with a view to re-focusing them for efficient and effective service delivery.
Dr. Baffa said that TETFund had also decided to institutionalize the Access Clinic and Project Proposal Defense as a yearly event in order to reduce to the barest minimum the challenges faced by the institutions in accessing their interventions. [myad]
