FG Expended N3.8bn on Stranded Scholars, Says TETFUND

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

The federal government has disclosed that it has expended the sum of N3.8 billion on the stranded Nigerian scholars abroad in recent years.
The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Mr. Sonny Echono, stated this in Abuja when he received the House of Representatives Committee on TETFund and other Services who were on an oversight visit to the Fund.

“We have taken care of 1,500 scholars with a total of N3.8 billion extended. We identify a cut-off point for those who will be eligible for the scholarship.”
On the purported delayed payment of the scholarship, Echono explained that due to forex increase, a lot of scholars from all over the world, UK, Malaysia and others cried out as it were and the petitions went to Presidency, National Assembly, Ministry of Education and even to TETFund.

“We were happy that the response was very positive and that was why we were able to secure the President’s approval and do what we called the bail out or assistance. We did observe that part of the challenge,” he said.

“In the past, each time we approve the funding for the institutions, we send money directly to the schools and it is the responsibility of the institutions to now remit to the students. However, for illegitimate and legitimate reasons, many of the institutions came back to us and complain that it takes a whole lot of time to process the transfers to central bank,” he added.
The Executive Secretary, commended the Onuoha-led committee for intervening in the payment of education tax by summoning commercial bank executives.

He said there had been a rise in education tax collection from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent, which has to do with the efficiency of collection.

He said the collection from education tax in 2020 was N257 billion, and by 2021, the fund received a sharp decline in the tax collection of N185.5 billion.

He added that the collection rose to 328.8 billion in 2022 and 725 billion in 2023, respectively.

Echono added that before now, Nigeria was not doing well in the area of research grants.

He, however, added that efforts had been made as Nigeria now moved from the 9th position to the 7th position in the African research grant, lamenting that the high exchange rate had reduced the number of scholars the fund trained in its interventions.

He said that remittances to scholars in the past were not too good, saying, many of the institutions came back to us saying that it takes a lot of processes to get money from the Central Bank.”

“But we now pay directly to the institution as part of our intervention. So CBN now transfers in bulk to different institutions for those scholars.

Earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Hon. Mariam Onuoha, frowned at the high rate of unaccessed fund by the beneficiary institutions noting that, oftentimes, the problem was not making law but implementing it.

According to her, the government signed the Act of Parliament into law and the beneficiary institutions await these interventions, however there’s guidelines to the affected interventions.