When Reps members, Zamfara state govt raised thumbs for Echono

Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and other Services were recently at the headquarters of the agency to evaluate its activities.

The Chairperson of the committee, Miriam Onuoha, said the visit was pursuant to Section 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which mandates committee to oversight the Ministry, Department and Agencies (MDAs) under its purview, as well as see how the agency had performed in the 2022–2023 budget, in line with budgetary provision.

At the end of the visit, Onuoha took time to applaud the Executive Secretary of the Fund, Arc. Sonny Echono, and his management team for their glaring efficient service delivery in tertiary institutions across the country.

The committee chairperson did not mince words when she reiterated that the good works of TETFund under Echono were visible as they littered public tertiary institutions in all parts of the country.

She acknowledged that the Fund is charged with the responsibility of rehabilitating, developing and improving the quality of tertiary education in the country, with primary beneficiaries comprising universities, colleges of education, polytechnics, monotechnics, staff training and development agencies, libraries, books development, research, ICT and capacity building.

The legislator commended TETFund for its various interventions in the education sector and research development, appealing to relevant government bodies, especially state governors, to use the instrumentality of their office to ensure that heads of institutions comply with the agency on accessing their funds.

It is pertinent to state that Echono has been resilient, transparent and has invested so much commitment to ensure that the standard of public tertiary institutions is upgraded.

The much-applauded littering of structures across schools bear witness to his proactive steps in ensuring that projects are executed within timelines. He drastically reduced bureaucratic bottlenecks in the agency through his open-door policy. This has also contributed largely in seamless but judicious release of funds for projects in line with due process.

On his part, Echono disclosed that the Fund had disbursed about N1.45 trillion for infrastructural development to beneficiary institutions between 2020 and 2023 and expressed worries over some institutions’ apathy to access the 2023 and 2024 interventions of the agency.

The TETFund boss revealed that in most state institutions, some heads of tertiary institutions are yet to see their Commissioners for Information for approval in the past two months.

“The issue of inadequate assess of the funds that we allocate to schools is a very painful thing, especially given the inflationary trend. One billion naira two years ago is almost like N500,000 today or less. So, the more you delay the utilisation of this intervention, the less value you can get from it.

“We have tried on our side. We studied the situation. There has been a significant improvement. We must commend some of the institutions compared to previous years; but they are not doing enough. And we expected this year to even be better because we started very early. We got approval since December 2023 and by January, we had already given them allocation letters but some of them are still used to waiting until May or June to begin to apply.

“Beyond the fact that we encouraged them, we organised workshops for all the beneficiary institutions across all the six geopolitical zones of the country in partnership with the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP) to explain how to meet the requirements for accessing these funds. On our various platforms, we also did some coaching. Only recently, we had to send reminders for those who have not accessed 2023 and 2024 interventions. We want you to help us scold them too,” he appealed.

Also in the course of last week, the interventionist agency played host to Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, who came to appeal for increase in the intervention fund to the state to help boost infrastructure in some state-owned tertiary institutions.

Again, Lawal did not fail to appreciate the interventionist agency under the leadership of Echono for the level of infrastructural development achieved so far in higher institutions through the help of the Fund. He admitted that the structures have enhanced growth and development of education in the state.

The governor, who led some serving members of the State Executive Council on the visit, commended TETFund management for various projects funded in the state’s tertiary institutions, which he said, contributed in no small measures to the state’s drive for economic reengineering, even as he called for more support.

Noting the poor financial standing of Zamfara, the governor said that the State of Emergency he declared in the education sector recently required extensive funding support to succeed. He therefore sought the support of TETFund to complete some of the abandoned projects, especially at the state university in order to expand access to university education in the state.

He underscored the urgency of addressing the pressing challenges within the state’s educational system, highlighting TETFund’s importance in that the respect.

“I came to say thank you to TETFund, but at the same time, to ask for more interventions considering the financial situation of the states. Remember that sometime in November, we declared a State of Emergency in education and that is the reason I am here to continue to follow up wherever we can get help so that things will be better in Zamfara,” the governor said.

Considering the milestones that the country has witnessed in the area of infrastructural development in benefiting public institutions as well as human capital development through capacity building programmes and resource provision, stakeholders have expressed the need to allow Echono to remain focused and continue to deliver on the mandate of the Fund.