Speaker Promises Transparency, Accountability In Public Funds Management

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Tajudeen Abbas has reiterated the house’ commitment to ensuring accountability and transparency in the management of public funds.

He made the commitment at a Public Hearing on the Proposal Amendments to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) Act (2011) in Abuja, organised by House Committee on TETFUND and other Services.

Represented by the Leader of the house, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, Mr. Abbas recalled that the fund was established in 2011 by an Act of the National Assembly.

According to him, it is an intervention agency whose function was to provide support to all levels of public tertiary institutions in the country.

He explained that the focus is on provision of educational infrastructure including and capacity building for academic staff of the Institutions.

“It has been established through available data that the fund has substantially fulfilled its given mandate.

“However, there still exist some limitations in the existing legal framework that hinder the Fund from meeting the challenges posed by current realities and its obligations.

“The over-reliance on the Fund by beneficiary institutions has encouraged a lack of innovations by some of the tertiary administrators while the legal framework allowed some ambiguities and potential risks of arbitrariness.

“Particularly in the areas of the authorisation of withdrawals from the fund, and the assessment and clarity on taxable profits for the Fund’s contributions.

“The amendments are meant to provide for additional conditions for assessing funds for capital projects by beneficiary institutions and related matters.

“I understand that the current framework limits the effective oversight function of the National Assembly and questions the transparency and accountability procedures adopted by the administrators.

“The 10th House of Representatives has a responsibility as the People’s House to ensure accountability and transparency in the management of public funds,” Mr. Abbas said.

Passing second reading

The Chairman of the committee, Mrs. Mariam Onuoha said that the bill which was sponsored by the Speaker was referred to the committee after passing second reading.

She said that the intention of the bill was to correct rising issues of ally poor implementation of projects which left doubts on how much funds have been deployed and how much had been done in tertiary institutions.

Mrs Onouha said that stemming from the controversies and complaints from stakeholders, the speaker recommended amendments to section 7 of the Act to strengthen the guidelines for accessing and utilising the funds.

She said the views and submissions of the stakeholders would be considered in the report that would be produced at the end of the hearing.

“Public funds, once deployed are subject to accountability, probity and justification for the amount released which often is not enough.

“Even we are given little, that little demands accountability and probity; it is in line with this that the committee will commence a school-by-school oversight from the second quarter of the year.

“This is to ensure direct inspection to observe how critical infrastructure are being executed, to see and document abandoned or distressed projects.

“If there are contractors who have collected money that have not done the job in accordance to the bill of quantity, the committee name and shame and make necessary recommendations for sanctions to blacklist them where necessary,” she said.

Proper accountability

The chairman commended the leadership for its support for the committee in its quest to ensure better oversight, proper accountability and judicious utilisation of interventions made in the tertiary institutions.

“We as a committee have participated in the ongoing tax reforms bill and have made our plea along with other stakeholders on the need to exclude the clause affecting the operations of TETFUND.

“We are of the opinion that TETFUND opinion has become the lifewire of infrastructure development and capacities of lecturers across the tertiary institutions and haven come this far, it will not be right to throw away the baby and bath water.

“Issues bothering on operations of the TETFUND, the committee as mandated by section 88 and 89 of the Constitution empowers the committee to carry out oversight to ensure that they are corrected at the right time.

“This is to ensure a win-win and balanced implementation instead of ,” she said.

Proper management

The Executive Secretary of TETFUND, Mr Sonny Echono said that efforts were being made to ensure proper management of the fund.

He decried the indiscriminate establishment of tertiary institutions without proper funding plan especially by some state governments that banked on the fund.

Echono said that fund had come up with proper policy to ensure fairness in accessing the funds saying that only one university, a polytechnic and a college of education from each state can access funds in a year.

Manage the funds

The executive secretary urged members of the National Assembly to cut down on establishment bills recommending expansion of existing schools to better manage the funds.

Also speaking, the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke called for the return of ASUU to the board of TETFUND.

He said that an independent monitoring committee should be set up to follow the monitoring of the project from scratch to finish.

He also called for the protection of TETFUND in the ongoing tax reforms which threatens the operations of the fund saying that TETFUND is the life wire of tertiary education in Nigeria.

 

 

Lateefah Ibrahim