Alleged N2.9bn TETFund ICT Project: Firm Says Report Of Non-Execution False

An educational organisation, Fides Et Ratio Academy, has described as untrue an investigating report in a section of the media which alleged that a purported N2.9bn contract awarded to it by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) was not executed.

Chief Executive Officer of the Academy, Paul Chukwuma while fielding questions from newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja during a media parley on the firm’s plan to roll out massive skill training programmes in the country, said the organisation never had a contract with TETFund but a service agreement.

He disclosed that the agreement was on a skill training programme for directors and deputy directors of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as students in higher education institutions in the country.

Chukwuma, who expressed surprise over the erroneous report, said the academy’s project was fully executed.

“I don’t have a contract. What I have is service engagement. I don’t do contract with my educational interests. In the university, if you want a course you pay for it,” he said.

Chukwuma explained that the first component of the project with TETFund involved training of ICT directors and their deputies, adding that a total of 502 directors and deputy directors were trained.

“TETFund has something like a consolidated structure where they will negotiate for services, and every institution will benefit from that negotiated service. If this phone is N100, they will now say we will take 500 for 500 institutions and we will pay N3, so that other institutions will key into it and use the functionality, and we refused because it was a ridiculous pricing module.

“We went back and forth because what we had was an MoU which stipulated that this programme would run for like 3 years, and the argument was that, you have not done this, you have some time, and even if you lose in two years, maybe in the third year you will get something.

“But for this project, I did it at a loss, and I can show evidence, and it’s so painful that the project I did at a loss is being carried out in way and manner it’s been done,” he said.

He further explained that the other component of the project which involved training of students was also underpriced.

” Instead of our normal fee of 20 dollars per module, there are three modules, instead of 20 dollars per module per participant, what TETFund eventually agreed to pay, which they have not even finished paying per participant, is N1535,” he said.

Chukwuma lamented that the report also alleged that Fides Et Ratio Academy has no functional office or website which were all false.

“The first point on that publication was that I don’t have an office, that an attempt was made to locate my office, and somehow the report ended that somehow they couldn’t find the office but when I read that I felt somehow because I have been in this office close to 20 years, at least for 15 years, the report say they couldn’t find my office, but you can see I have an office and this is my office…

“The second thing that was raised was that we don’t have a functional website. I will call them to show you the website (sic), we have a very functional website.

” The third issue that was raised was that the training was not done, that we just went around and had meetings; that is another thing I felt was mischief,” he said.

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