By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has approved a total of N683.4 billion as the 2024 disbursement for beneficiary tertiary institutions across the country.
This was disclosed by the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Mr Sonny Echono, while giving the breakdown of the disbursement at a strategic meeting with heads of beneficiary institutions on Friday in Abuja.
He said that the allocation was the highest since inception and attributed the increase to the sustained efforts at expanding and increasing the efficiency of education tax collection from 2.5 per cent to 3.0 per cent in the year 2023.
Mr Echono said that the Fund had budgeted 90.57 per cent for Direct Annual Disbursement and 8.4 per cent as designated special interventions, from the total disbursement.
“A stabilisation of 2.27 per cent 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.
“Based on this approval, each university shall get, for the Year 2024 intervention cycle, the total sum of N1,906,944,930.00. This comprises N1,656,944,930.00 as annual direct disbursement and N250 million as zonal intervention.
“Similarly, each polytechnic shall get N1,165,355,235, comprising of N1,015,355,235 as annual direct disbursement and N150 million as zonal intervention.
“Also, each college of education shall get N1,398,426,282.00, comprising of N1,248,426,282.00 as annual direct disbursement and N150 million as zonal intervention,” he said.
Mr Echono added that the approved new intervention lines in the annual direct disbursement included the establishment of career centres/units, in all categories of beneficiary institutions as well as the institution-based skills development for polytechnics.
He also said that in response to popular demands from the colleges of education, the teaching practice allocation had been greatly enhanced.
“For the Special Direct Disbursements, we have increased the allocation for the Special High Impact Programme (SHIP).
“Also, the number of benefitting institutions has 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 (PPP) arrangement, innovation hubs, disaster recovery, security infrastructure, completion of abandoned projects and many others,” he added.
Mr Echono, therefore, urged heads of beneficiary institutions on timely payment to contractors and vendors to aid the proper completion of projects.
He further appealed to heads of beneficiary institutions to immediately commence implementation as early as possible.
