Tetfund decries poor utilization of library, man power interventions

The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Professor Abdullahi Baffa Bichi has decried poor utilization of library and manpower training funds by some tertiary institutions across the country. Professor Bichi, who stated this while addressing management and staff of Bayero University Kano (BUK) in Kano, on Monday said, it was unfortunate that […]

The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Professor Abdullahi Baffa Bichi has decried poor utilization of library and manpower training funds by some tertiary institutions across the country.

Professor Bichi, who stated this while addressing management and staff of Bayero University Kano (BUK) in Kano, on Monday said, it was unfortunate that the billions of naira, the fund spent on library and manpower development did not give the expected results.

He lamented that “the money we have allocated to the benefiting institutions for library development are more than enough for the beneficiaries to establish world-standard libraries. Unfortunately, the funds were poorly utilized with nothing on ground to show in terms of development.

“I have seen a request that was sent to the fund where a book that I know cost only N1, 500 was said to be procured at N150, 000. This is how some institutions are squandering public funds,” he said.

He, however, said the fund has resolved to review the procurement guidelines in order to bring sanity in the procurement processes.

Professor Bichi, who was at BUK to commission six projects executed by the university, also blamed some Nigerian universities for not sending their scholars to the appropriate institutions for training.

He said the first and second generations of Nigerian scholars have got it right by getting their training at the appropriate universities, assuring that henceforth, the fund would not sponsor any scholar to study in a low ranking institution anywhere in the world.

“The fund must assess the country and university before sponsoring our scholars to study there. We are going to send our scholars to the best universities across the world for training,” he said.

Professor Bichi commended Bayero University Kano for being among the few universities that are performing well in accessing and utilizing tetfund interventions.

Earlier, the Vice Chancellor of Bayero University Kano (BUK), Professor Muhammad Yahuza Bello, said the university has accessed and utilized all its tetfund allocations up to 2014, saying the institution is planning to assess the 2015 and 2016 allocations together.

Professor Bello said good planning was the secret behind effective utilization of the allocations by the university.

He said the university has a lot of pending projects that would be executed as soon as the institution accessed the 2015 and 2016 tetfund interventions.

The projects commissioned by the Tetfund’s boss included Center for Infectious Diseases, Center for Advance Medical Research and Training both situated at Aminu Kano Teaching hospital, Law Library, a block of 30 staff offices, a block classroom and staff offices at faculty of law and Gymnasium structure for sports.