TETFund partners BPP to ensure transparency, accountability 

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has partnered with the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP) to sensitize and train desk officers of its beneficiary higher institutions to ensure accountability and due process in its project implementations and strict adherence to policies.

The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, who spoke in Port Harcourt yesterday during the Intervention Programmes, said most officials of its public Tertiary Institutions are not fully conversant with laid down procedures, standards, and processes with regards to the award and execution of public procurement in line with the Procurement Act.

Represented by  TETFund Zonal Coordinator, South-South, Aminu Dumburi,the Executive Secretary said, such ignorance many times, has led to avoidable problems that hinders the smooth and timely execution of TETFund intervention projects in tertiary institutions across the country. He expressed hope that the move would reduce abuses of public procurement Acts on the discharge of its responsibilities.

According the Executive Secretary, the choice of the theme “Improving TETFund Intervention Programmes and processes in Beneficiary Institutions” was deliberate to enable the officers to be fully equipped and knowledgeable about its guidelines and mandate.

He added: “Engagement with beneficiary institutions that have distressed project with a view to understanding the problems and preferring solutions were possible. This has significantly reduced the number of abandoned projects that hitherto was rising in beneficiary institutions”.

“The budgetary provision for security infrastructure and completion of project in our 2023 intervention guidelines to enable us solve some of the persistence problems in our intervention projects”.

“In the light of these efforts, it is obvious that the Fund has taken deliberate actions that are aimed at solving persistent problems and making our process more efficient,” he stated.

Some of the participants described the workshop as apt and called on the Federal Government to create an enabling environment for them to thrive and effectively implement the policies.

The Director of Academics, College of Education, Warri, Mr, Azugbene Samuel said, “There is need for government to provide an enabling environment for the beneficiary institutions to thrive and also make it easy to implement its policies “