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Nigerian Lecturers Spend Research Grants On Cars, Etc – TETFund
Research grants given to lecturers across the country’s public tertiary institutions are diverted to acquire cars, houses, etc. This is according to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
TETFund’s director of research and development, Salihu Bakari, made the revelation.
According to him, these research grants are used to build personal homes, purchase cars, and engage in other frivolous activities. Mr Bakari was responding to questions from the participants at a capacity building workshop.
This is coming days after an allegation of personnel budget inflation was levelled against some academic and healthcare institutions.
“Through our recovery efforts, we had traced monies to houses built by lecturers with the public fund. He also accused many of the institutions of committing worse crimes”, said Bakari.
He said TETFund’s new policy engagement, the introduction of strict conditions, and the process towards recovering public funds misappropriated by both the individual lecturers and institutions, will help to reduce malfeasance across various campuses.
In 2011, the Federal Government of Nigeria established the Tertiary Education Trust fund (TETFUND). The objective of the scheme is to disburse, manage and monitor education tax to government-owned tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
It also aims to arrest the rot and deterioration in the educational infrastructure occasioned by a long period of neglect and very poor resource allocation.
TETFUND scheme was formed as a product of the Education Tax Act of 1993. Prior to the establishment of the scheme in 2011, government-owned tertiary institutions were poorly funded. The scheme was designed to improve on the management of funds disbursed to these institutions.
