TETFund: 226 tertiary institutions to share N500bn in 2021 | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
3rd December 2020
A total number of 226 tertiary institutions across the country are to access N500 billion education tax funds in 2021 from the Tertiary Education Fund (TETfund).
Speaking at the TETfund/FIRS 2020 joint interactive forum in Ilorin on Thursday, the chairman board of trustees of the TETfund, Kashim Imam, said that a new target of N500 billion was set as education tax to be collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in 2021 considering the magnitude of challenges facing tertiary education in Nigeria.
The TETfund boss said that the 226 tertiary institutions, comprising of 226 federal and state universities, federal and state polytechnic and colleges of education would benefit the funds for improved infrastructure components.
Imam, who said that the TETfund was committed to impact more, added that the BOT under him was determined to prove that public agency must, should work and must work to get results.
“The synergy between the FIRS and TETfund is vital to the transformation that is evident in our public tertiary institutions nationwide. This was achieved as a result of joint delivery of complementary services by providing amiable and lasting solutions to our beneficiaries. In addition, the successful strategic partnership over the years can be attributed to the strong, relentless commitment and cooperation by the leadership of both organizations and our zeal to improve Nigerian education nationwide,” he said.
The chairman of the BOT also said that the team of the TETfund and FIRS would visit project sites in tertiary institutions in the state to see if the funds had been judiciously utilised by the management of the schools.
Also speaking at the joint interactive forum, the executive chairman of the FIRS, Mohammed Nami, said that it collected the sum of N251 billion as at October this year for the TETfund.
Nami, who was represented by the agency’s director, state coordinator of Oyo, Ogun and Osun, Nureni Fasola, said that FIRS raked in N214 billion for the Fund in 2019.
The FIRS also put its overall 2020 performance from January to October at N4.122 trillion despite Covid-19 challenges, Financial Act 2019 incentives and palliatives concessions.
It said its non-oil revenue collection performance in the same period stood at N2.8 trillion and oil revenue collection performance stood at N1.3 trillion.
In his speech, the Executive Secretary of the TETfund, Professor Suleiman Bogoro, represented by the Director of Finance, Idris Seidu, said that the Fund was striving to change the narratives by taking practical steps to put the nation on a revolutionary path of a knowledge-based economy.
He said that the TETfund was committed to impact on the nation’s tertiary institutions comprising of 226 federal and state universities, federal and state polytechnic and colleges of education for improved infrastructure components.