House Committee Commends UNILAG, Urges More Commitment

CHAIRMAN, House of Representatives Committee on Education, Aminu Suleiman, has lauded the management of University of Lagos (UNILAG) for its tremendous academic and infrastructural success.

    Aminu, who spoke during the committee’s recent visit to the school as part of its oversight function, also charged the school authority to step up efforts in their quest to remain a top class university.   

    He said the visit is very imperative as members have at different times in the past observed fraud in budget implementations by either the ministries or government agencies, adding that most of the discoveries were usually in the areas of poor budget performance, non-release of approved funds by the ministries and poor implementations of approved projects.

   The committee was received by the Vice Chancellor of the school, Prof Rahamon Bello; Deputy VC (Academic and Research), Prof Babajide Alo; Deputy VC (Management Services), Prof Duro Oni; Registrar and Secretary to Council, Dr. Taiwo Ipaye; Bursar, Mr. Lateef Odekunle; Librarian, Dr. Olukemi Fadehan and other top officials of the school.

    Welcoming the lawmakers, Bello emphasised that inadequate fund to carry out its projects is one of the major challenges confronting the school, adding that on some occasion government releases less than the approved fund for the universities.

   Citing the 2013 case, where the university had to seek other means of generating fund to pay workers because the budgetary allocation was underpaid to the tune of about N600 million, adding that up till date the money has not been refunded to the school.

   Some of the infrastructural achievements, according to Bello, include the construction with furnishing of the Creative Arts building, Module A2 and B; construction with furnishing of block of offices and classrooms for the Faculty of Engineering; and construction of Entrepreneurship Centre.

    Others are procurement and installation of various teaching and research equipment for the College of Medicine; procurement of various furniture items, including 300 units of student desk and chair for the Faculty of Social Sciences; procurement of various furniture items, including 260 units of furniture for lecture theatre in the Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Basic Sciences, School of Radiography and others.

    He also identified lack of land to build accommodation for students and staff, inadequate remuneration from the Federal Government and spending about N40 million on power as some of the challenges.

    The committee inspected some of the completed and ongoing projects on the campus, especially those being funded with the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFund).