Tinubu Approves Over N683bn For 2024 Intervention Budget For TETFund

President Bola Tinubu has approved the sum of N683,429,268, 402.64 for the 2024 Intervention Budget of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).

This was disclosed by the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sonny Echono during the Annual Strategic Planning Meeting with TETFund Beneficiary Institutions in Abuja on Friday.

THE WHISTLER reports that this year’s intervention represents a significant increase to last year’s intervention which amounted to N320bn.

Echono explained that 90.75 per cent of the fund will be budgeted for direct disbursement and 8.94 per cent for some designated special projects.

“A stabilization of 2.27 percent is allowed to enable the Fund to respond to emerging issues. This is inclusive of the difference between actual collections and the projections made for November and December 2023 collections as requested and approved by Mr. President,” he said.

While breaking down the interventions, Echono stated that each Public University in the country will get the total sum of N1,906,944,930.00.

“This comprises N1,656,944,930.00 as annual direct disbursement and N250m as zonal intervention,” he said.

He added that each Polytechnic will get N1,165,355,235.00 comprising N1,015,355,235.00 as annual direct disbursement and N150m as zonal intervention.

For the College of Education, Echono stated that each of the colleges will get N1,398,426,282.00 comprising N1,248,426,282.00 as annual direct disbursement and N150m as zonal intervention.

Echono attributed the increase of the intervention to the sustained efforts at expanding and increasing the efficiency of collection of the Education Tax, and the concurrence of the President for an increase in the tax from 2.5 per cent to 3.0 per cent in the year 2023.

“We are grateful to all the key actors, notably the Minister of Education Prof. Tahir Mamman, Minister of Finance and coordinating Minister for the Economy, the Chairmen and members of the Senate and House Committees on TETFund and the Chairman Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) for their unwavering support, towards the sustainably improvement of the collection,” he said.

The Executive Secretary further explained that new interventions approved for 2024, in line with the Annual Direct Disbursement include the establishment of Career Centers/Unit, in all categories of beneficiary institutions as well as the Institution Based Skills development for Polytechnics.

“In response to popular demands from the Colleges of Education, the teaching practice allocation has been greatly enhanced.

“For the Special Direct Disbursements, we have increased the allocation for the Special High Impact Programme (SHIP), and the number of benefitting institutions have also been increased to two per geopolitical zone per category giving a total of 36 beneficiary institutions. Other areas of Special Direct Disbursement are provision for Hostels using the Public/Private Partnership arrangement, innovation hubs, Disaster Recovery, Security Infrastructure, Completion of abandoned projects and many others,” he said.

Echono added that to resolve the problems arising from the increase in exchange rates to scholars, TETFund have made provisions in the 2024 intervention to address the shortfall.