By CECILIA IJUO

The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Mr Sonny Echono, has announced N1,487,387,028 as Direct Intervention to public tertiary institutions for the year 2022.

The Executive Secretary made the announcement at a Strategic Interactive Session for Heads of TETFund Beneficiary Institutions on Monday in Abuja.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the interactive is with the theme: “Ensuring Synergy for Effective Implementation of TETFund Interventions”.

Echono stated that disbursement of the money would be done in three parts: universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.

He added that the fund had received approval of President Muhammadu Buhari for guidelines of 2022 intervention budget for implementation.

He noted that the broad areas of interventions as approved by the Board of Trustees of the fund were categorised into Annual Direct Intervention and Special Interventions.

He added that “in all cases, disbursements are based on the equality of states and of geo-political zones as enshrined in the enabling Act.

“It is my pleasure to inform you that in line with the provisions of the Act we have received the approval of Mr. President for the guidelines of the Year 2022 intervention budget for implementation.

“Disbursement for the annual direct intervention for 2022 approved guidelines are summarised as follows: N642,848,138 to each university; N396,780,086 to each polytechnic; and N447,758,804 to each college of education.”

The executive secretary, who assured the beneficiary institutions of receiving their letters of allocation for the annual direct intervention at the interactive session, added that allocations for special interventions would be released in due course.

On ensuring that the fund carried out its mandate effectively, Echono, who assumed office recently, promised to build on the efforts of his predecessors.

He stressed that the fund’s primary areas of focus were digital literacy, elimination of internal audit clearance, revamping non performing projects in some institutions, expansion of centres of excellence among others.

The Executive Secretary, Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed identified the need for synergy to enable TETFUND to deliver on its mandate.

He enjoined the fund to think of strategies to deploy to ensure that funds released to institutions met the demand adding that devaluation was a major factor in funds losing value before completion of projects. (NAN)

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