FG Owing TETFUND N323b- ES

The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund TETFUND, Mr. Sonny Echono, says the federal government is owing the organisation, N323 billion.

Mr Echono said the Federal Government borrowed N371.3 billion from the agency but has only refunded N48 billion so far.

He stated this when he appeared before an ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives investigating the alleged missing N2.3 trillion in TETFUND.

The House had set up the Committee, headed by Oluwole Oke to investigate the alleged abuse of N2.3 trillion generated from the Tertiary Education Tax by the Fund from 2011 to 2023.

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Speaking on the allegations, Mr Echono said the Fund did not mismanage the funds, noting that the federal government is owing the fund.

“The federal government acknowledges that it was borrowing, and we have full documentation of this and all the correspondences that accompanied it. Other borrowings since then are being tabulated and given to you.

We did secure presidential approval to refund this borrowing since 2015, and the federal government has been refunding, albeit in piecemeal.

“To date, total borrowing is over N371 billion. But the total repayment to this date is about N48 billion. Last year N12.8 billion was given to us; this year, another 12.89 billion was given to us. They are just paying. God knows how long this will take to defray the principal amount,” he said.

He explained that the federal government generated N2.476 trillion from the education tax from 2011 to 2022, and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) retained N99 billion as the cost of collection.

The ES also explained that the Fund is struggling with the foreign exchange regime because the recent devaluation of the naira affected the approved funds for students on scholarships abroad.

He said the organisation is considering suspending foreign scholarships and focusing on first-generation universities in Nigeria for training.

The Chairman of the Commitee, Mr Oke, while reacting to the comments by Mr Echono, said the committee is not out to witch-hunt anyone but rather to get to the root of the matter.

Oduyemi Odumade, Edited By Grace Namiji