EXCLUSIVE: TETFund suspends conference attendance sponsorship for Nigerian lecturers over corrupt practices
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The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has suspended sponsorship of conference attendance for Nigerian lecturers over allegations of fraudulent practices by many the beneficiaries, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.
The decision, which seemed to be a confirmation of a recent allegation of grant diversion levelled against the lecturers by the agency's director of research and development, Salihu Bakari, was taken by the governing board of the agency at its meeting held last week.
This newspaper in its report on Tuesday titled; "Nigerian Scholars spend research grants on cars, houses" had exclusively reported the director's allegation against some of the beneficiaries of its support funds and opportunities.
Mr Bakari made the allegation in his response to a question by one of the participants at a research conference organised by the agency in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on why conditions attached to accessing grants by TETfund are "too stringent."
But the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the umbrella body for the lecturers, has reacted angrily to the allegation, describing it as "hasty generalisation, blanket condemnation, and ridiculing" of the country's academia by a funding agency.
Suspension order
According to a reliable source within the agency, TETFund took the decision as part of efforts towards sanitising the country's academic system.
The source, who is a member of the governing board, does not want to be named, saying he was not authorised to speak on the matter.
READ ALSO: Nigeria university enrolment 'near crisis' with only 2 million students — NUC
The governing board, currently headed in acting capacity by the executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), the source noted, met last week to review the 2019 activities of TETFund.
"The agency's activities were reviewed at the meeting, and more importantly was the sponsorship of the lecturers' conference attendance. Quite unfortunately, more than 50 per cent of lecturers' sponsored by TETFund for both local and foreign conferences did not attend the conferences but pocketed the money," the source said.
The source added that the agency was considering various options towards dealing with the challenge of abuse of funds by the beneficiaries.
The source added; "Just like foreign grants there are lots of measures put in place to guide the disbursement of TETFund grants, but sometimes some either abscond after receiving first tranche or they change institutions without informing appropriate authorities. But it is new dawn at TETFund now.
TETFund's 2019 restriction order failed
In 2018, TETFUND said beginning from January 2019, it would restrict the sponsorship of academic staff members of public tertiary institutions in Nigeria to local academic conferences.
The decision, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, was based on various excuses offered by the lecturers whenever they failed to account for conference grants they received.
The Fund's former executive secretary, Abdullahi Baffa, in a letter addressed to universities' vice-chancellors, said that sponsorship condition was such they are expected to make paper presentations at such conferences.
The letter, dated August 30, 2018, and signed on behalf of the executive secretary by the then acting director, academic staff training and development unit, Mr Bakari, said the new position was in line with the fund's policy that is aimed at supporting teaching staff of Nigeria's public tertiary institutions.
Meanwhile, efforts to get the reaction of the acting director of TETFund's public affairs unit, Uche Wogu, to confirm the suspension order, were unsuccessful as his line was not available as at the time our reporter called.
Nigerian lecturers spend research grants on cars, houses – TETFund
TETFUND
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has accused lecturers across the country's public tertiary institutions of diverting research grants to build homes, purchase cars, and engage in other frivolous activities.
This is coming days after an allegation of personnel budget inflation levelled against some academic and healthcare institutions including the University of Ibadan, by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), was made public.
Making the fresh allegation in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Monday, TETFund's director of research and development, Salihu Bakari, said huge sums of money made available to the individual lecturers, and sometimes their teams for research exercises, conference attendance, among others, are usually misappropriated.
Mr Bakari spoke at a capacity building workshop organised by the agency for select staffers of research and development units from some of the public tertiary institutions, as parts of efforts aimed at rejigging research activities in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
Mr Bakari, while responding to questions from the participants on the introduction of 'stringent' conditions by the agency, especially in the allocation of grants, noted that the culture of impunity, breach of trust, and violations of funding agreements and rules of engagement by the lecturers is unimaginable.
He said: "It is sad to note that public funds made available to lecturers to conduct groundbreaking and demand-driven researches towards solving Nigeria's socio-economic, and even political challenges, are misappropriated by those who are expected to be above board. I mean the beneficiaries of our grants.
"Through our recovery efforts, we had traced monies to houses built by lecturers with the public fund; there are cases of cars purchased with the money, without any research work done. And these are the people who would be accusing politicians of being corrupt."
He also accused many of the institutions of committing worse crimes.
He said TETFund's new policy engagement, introduction of strict conditions, and the process towards recovering public funds misappropriated by both the individual lecturers and institutions, will help to reduce malfeasance across various campuses.
More funds, less applicants
Meanwhile, the agency has further accused the institutions and their lecturers of not accessing huge funds available at the organisation for research activities and development of innovative programmes.
According to Mr Bakari, the agency is shifting its focus from infrastructural development of the higher institutions to content development.
He said globally, high-flying academic institutions are no longer known to occupy large space but are recognised with their innovative ideas, rich content and advancements in technology.
However, he lamented that as much as the agency is trying to democratise access to its large pool of resources, "lecturers and their institutions are not coming forward to access the funds."
"Today, we have decided to shift our focus and we have opened more doors of opportunities for both the lecturers and their institutions to attract funds to showcase their expertise. But what do we see? No one is coming for the funds.
"For instance, as at 2019, out of 220 public tertiary institutions that are eligible to access our funds for journal publications, only 26 applied. We now also have financial interventions in the areas of manuscript development, ICT development, basic research fund, national research fund, advocacy, among others."
'Paradigm shift'
Major facilitators at the conference, including Nigeria-born Ibrahim Katampe of the Centre for Excellence in Emerging Technologies at the Central State University, USA; Olufemi Bamiro, former vice-chancellor of University of Ibadan, among others, said they have keyed into TETFund's new vision.
Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES on the sidelines of the opening programme at the conference, Mr Katampe, a professor, said no nation develops above the quality of her researchers.
He said for Nigeria to reclaim her lost glory and combat the socio-economic and political challenges including insecurity, poverty, hunger and diseases, quality researches that are demand-driven must be constantly carried out by the country's academics
"Things must change back home. Our experiences have shown that holding a serious workshop like this in Nigeria will only be counterproductive. Apart from distractions, absenteeism and nonchalance on the part of participants that we may encounter, real-time facilities for demonstrations are also not available back home.
"But now that TETFund is changing its focus from building constructions to content development, we want to believe it is time for positive change in the areas of research and development in our tertiary institutions. We are committed to this because we have got no other home apart from Nigeria, and no foreigners would fix our problems for us."
On Sun, Feb 16, 2020 at 3:50 PM Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:
EXCLUSIVE: TETFund suspends conference attendance sponsorship for Nigerian lecturers over corrupt practices
TETFUND
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has suspended sponsorship of conference attendance for Nigerian lecturers over allegations of fraudulent practices by many the beneficiaries, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.
The decision, which seemed to be a confirmation of a recent allegation of grant diversion levelled against the lecturers by the agency's director of research and development, Salihu Bakari, was taken by the governing board of the agency at its meeting held last week.
This newspaper in its report on Tuesday titled; "Nigerian Scholars spend research grants on cars, houses" had exclusively reported the director's allegation against some of the beneficiaries of its support funds and opportunities.
Mr Bakari made the allegation in his response to a question by one of the participants at a research conference organised by the agency in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on why conditions attached to accessing grants by TETfund are "too stringent."
But the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the umbrella body for the lecturers, has reacted angrily to the allegation, describing it as "hasty generalisation, blanket condemnation, and ridiculing" of the country's academia by a funding agency.
Suspension order
According to a reliable source within the agency, TETFund took the decision as part of efforts towards sanitising the country's academic system.
The source, who is a member of the governing board, does not want to be named, saying he was not authorised to speak on the matter.
READ ALSO: Nigeria university enrolment 'near crisis' with only 2 million students — NUC
The governing board, currently headed in acting capacity by the executive secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), the source noted, met last week to review the 2019 activities of TETFund.
"The agency's activities were reviewed at the meeting, and more importantly was the sponsorship of the lecturers' conference attendance. Quite unfortunately, more than 50 per cent of lecturers' sponsored by TETFund for both local and foreign conferences did not attend the conferences but pocketed the money," the source said.
The source added that the agency was considering various options towards dealing with the challenge of abuse of funds by the beneficiaries.
The source added; "Just like foreign grants there are lots of measures put in place to guide the disbursement of TETFund grants, but sometimes some either abscond after receiving first tranche or they change institutions without informing appropriate authorities. But it is new dawn at TETFund now.
TETFund's 2019 restriction order failed
In 2018, TETFUND said beginning from January 2019, it would restrict the sponsorship of academic staff members of public tertiary institutions in Nigeria to local academic conferences.
The decision, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, was based on various excuses offered by the lecturers whenever they failed to account for conference grants they received.
The Fund's former executive secretary, Abdullahi Baffa, in a letter addressed to universities' vice-chancellors, said that sponsorship condition was such they are expected to make paper presentations at such conferences.
The letter, dated August 30, 2018, and signed on behalf of the executive secretary by the then acting director, academic staff training and development unit, Mr Bakari, said the new position was in line with the fund's policy that is aimed at supporting teaching staff of Nigeria's public tertiary institutions.
Meanwhile, efforts to get the reaction of the acting director of TETFund's public affairs unit, Uche Wogu, to confirm the suspension order, were unsuccessful as his line was not available as at the time our reporter called.
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