FG approves disbursement of N161bn intervention fund to varsities, others

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the sum of N161 billion for disbursement as last year’s intervention fund to public tertiary institutions in the country.

This is even as the total education tax collection for the by the Federal Government stood at N200,793,208.54.

Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Dr. Bisi Baffa, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja while briefing newsmen on the activities of the agency last year, added that each public university would get an allocation of N785, 832,700, each public polytechnic N536,703,502, while each College of Education is to get an allocation of N510,084,900.

He said detailed breakdown of the allocations would be released after the Fund communicates the allocation letters to the institutions, noting that the over N200billion collected last year as education tax by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) showed an increase of about 25.47 per cent over the previous year’s collection of N154.9 billion.

He, however, explained that the approval of TETFund 2018 intervention guidelines of N161billion represents the education tax collection for the year 2017.