Reps pass TETfund Act amendment Bill for second reading

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund Establishment Act (Amendment) Bill on Thursday scaled second reading on the floor of the House of Representatives.

The amendment Bill seeks to provide for additional conditions for accessing funds for capital projects by beneficiary institutions in Nigeria.

The bill seeks to encourage administrators or managers of government institutions to work hard to provide their own infrastructure to enable them access the TETfund for further development.

The Bill sponsored by the Speaker, Abass Tajudeen and Babajide Benson seeks to amend the TETfund Act 2011 proposed to amend Section 7 of the existing Act by inserting two new Sub Sections after Sub Section 5 to provide additional

Leading the debate on the Bill, Benson said TETfund was established as an intervention agency to address the lack of, or poor funding of government institutions hitherto.

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He said the mandate of the agency also included addressing infrastructural decay, lack of conducive environment for teaching and learning leading to very low morale of both academic and non-academic staff of higher institutions in Nigeria.

The lawmaker decried that constant experience has shown that lack of capacity, integrity, laziness and misappropriation of funds characterised many of the government owned institutions.

He argued that the objective of TETfund is not to take over infrastructural development in tertiary institutions, but to assist in addressing infrastructural deficits where the institutions have challenges.

Benson stated: “In other words, any institution that is unable to provide evidence of what it has done in the three preceding years are ineligible to access the fund.

“This bill is proposed to amend Section 7 of the existing Act by inserting two new Sub Sections after Sub Section 5 to provide additional conditions for accessing of fund for capital projects by beneficiary institutions in order to encourage the beneficiary institutions to embark on their own capital projects instead of relying solely on TEDfund for capital development.”