By Muktar Tahir – The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, has revealed the amount it has injected in boosting tertiary education in Nigeria in the last 10 years.
The revelation was made by Chairman, Board of Trustees of TETFund, Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, during the 3rd edition of Tax Payers Forum with the theme: ‘TETFUND Intervention: Catalyst for Transforming Tertiary Education in Nigeria’ held in Lagos on Thursday.
Mr Ibrahim-Imam said more than N2.5 trillion had been spent by the Fund in the development of infrastructure and staff development in public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education in Nigeria in the last 10 years of its establishment.
He disclosed that the agency is targeting more than N500 billion education tax collection by 2023, while assuring that he would ensure that intervention to the beneficiary institutions be increased by 50 per cent next year and 100 per cent in two years.
The event which had the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, represented by his deputy, Olufemi Hamzat, as a guest of honour was attended by captains of industries, academia and other stakeholders.
Mr Sanwo-Olu, in his speech delivered by his deputy, Hamzat, however, insisted that funding for the education sector must be prioritised.
The governor noted that TETFund was then established as a child of necessity to intervene in the ailing universities system and that universities in Nigeria would have been worse than the current situation without TETFund.
He, therefore, appealed to the companies private operating in Nigeria to be consistent in their remittances, while also charging TETFund to endeavour to create Silicon Valley for Nigeria and focus on how to take research to the market.
The Minister of Education of Education, Adamu Adamu, who was represented by the Pro-chancellor of the University of Benin, Dr Sonny Kuku, commended the stakeholders for their contribution while assuring them of the determination of the Federal Government to transform the entire landscape of public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, said the Tax Payers Forum served as the platform to honour and identify individuals and companies that have made tremendous contributions to education through the consistent payment of education tax.
According to him, these individuals and companies have invariably contributed to the development of education and by extension that of the entire nation.
He explained that the 2 per cent education tax is remitted annually by companies through the FIRS to TETFund for allocation and onward disbursement to beneficiary institutions across the country.
Mr Bogoro noted that the education tax over the years has been channelled into different activities and areas in line with the mandate of the Fund as enshrined in the establishment Act.
