. Arc. Sunny Echono, TETFund ES
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ASUU, FG tussle: resolution lies with TETFund
As Nigeria groans under the pain of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike, UJI ABDULLAHI ILIYASU reports that the hope of Nigeria’s education sector lies in federal government’s
relinquishing of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) to heads of higher schools (Vice Chancellors, Rectors and Provosts) to run and manage so that they can better solve their needs, and state governments to form parallel State Tertiary Education Trust Fund (STETFund) to take care of state universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
Background
The struggle between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)
and the Federal Government has reached its crescendo where every
citizen must bring forth their recommendations in order to achieve a
one-stop solution to the conflict, which has dented the image of
Nigeria in international comity of civilised nations.
In Nigeria, parents and university students always take into
consideration the unspoken extra one year of ASUU strike in their
educational plan. If a student is going for a four-year programme, he
plans for five years; one year for ASUU strike, four years for
university education as enshrined in the 6-3-3-4 national educational
policy.
Again, a lot of students who are usually due to undergo the one-year
compulsory national service for their fatherland after completing
their university education have been oddly disqualified by prolonged
ASUU strike. This is especially impactful on the students who aspire
to serve their fatherland but by no fault of theirs, become ineligible
to do so.
Whose idea is TETfund?
What is known as TETFund today was the brainchild of university
lecturers. It was formerly known as Education Tax Fund (ETF),
embracing all tiers of education sector.
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) was developed by
university lecturers in their search for quality higher education for
Nigeria, better working condition and the best way to fund university
education. The idea was laid on the table of former military
president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida in 1991.
General Sani Abacha approved the establishment of ETF as proposed by
ASUU, probably to test its viability. In its one year of existence,
what was then known as Education Tax Fund garnered a little less than
eighty billion naira. The government then realised that it is a
goldmine which it must not relinquish to the university teachers.
Therefore, now TETFund has become the ruling government’s agency for
compensating political associates, and for rewarding loyal
subordinates by Ministers of Education. The hen that lays the golden
eggs is now left to languish in penury and work in enervating
conditions of service.
ETF renamed
In 2011, ETF was renamed and rebranded principally for federal
government’s participation in enjoying the dividends accruable from it
instead of only university teachers. TETFund was designed originally
to disburse, manage, and monitor education tax to government-owned
tertiary institutions of learning.
From the 1980s and beyond, the education sector was in a shambles; the
decay in all tiers of education was monumental. Facilities had almost
collapsed; teachers and lecturers’ morale was at its lowest ebb.
Enabling environment for conducive teaching and learning experience
was absent. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida guided by concerned
lecturers of this development, took measures to arrest the rot.
ASUU’s home grown solution
In December 1990 the Federal Government constituted the Commission on
the Review of Higher Education in Nigeria under Gray Longe commission.
The Longe Commission whose members were a think-tank of Academic Staff
Union (ASUU) recommended, among others, the funding of higher
education through one per cent tax to be borne by companies operating
in Nigeria.
An implementation committee under the chairmanship of Professor Olu O.
Akinkugbe was constituted to collect the tax, even as an agreement was
signed between the Federal Government and ASUU on September 3, 1992 on
funding of universities.
In January 1993, the Education Tax Act No7 of 1993 was promulgated,
and it imposed a two per cent tax on the assessable profits of all
companies in Nigeria. This was a home-grown solution by ASUU to
address issues of funding to rehabilitate decaying infrastructure,
restore the lost glory of education and confidence in the system. Then
it was mandated to operate as an intervention fund to all levels of
public education (federal, state and local).
On May 2011, the ETF Act was repealed and replaced by the Tertiary
Education Trust Fund ( TETFund) Act, because the ETF was overstretched
and could only render skeletal support to universities.
Tax administration
The Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) assesses, collects the tax
on behalf of the Fund. The funds are disbursed for the general
improvement of education in federal and state tertiary educations
essentially on physical infrastructure for teaching and learning;
research and publications; academic staff training and development,
among others. Although successive Executive Secretaries of TETfund
paid more attention to physical structures until the coming of Prof.
Suleiman Elias Bogoro, who changed the stereotype to emphasis on
research and development.
How much ASUU needs?
Recently, worried by the misinformation to Nigerians by government
representatives on the ASUU-FG negotiation team, ASUU president,
Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, accused the Federal Government of
misinforming Nigerians about their demands.
Prof. Osodeke disclosed this while reacting to the Minister of State
for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo’s claim that it was
unrealistic for the government to borrow money to end the now
six-month-old strike.
Osodeke in an interview with journalists in Abuja said that the claim
by Keyamo that ASUU was demanding N1.1Trillion Naira to end the
industrial action was false.
“We have never had it this bad in the history of Nigeria; because we
never had any situation where we would have an agreement with the
government, only for the government team to disappear…We’ve never had
it this bad!
“We’re not saying give ASUU this money; we are saying refurbish
Nigerian universities in such a way that it can attract students from
all over the world. That’s the major thing we are asking for. It’s not
about ASUU.
“We’re asking for that money for Nigerian students, and Nigerian
parents. The money is for building infrastructure, upgrading
libraries, hostels, and lecture theatres so that students will not be
having lectures through windows; so that students will not be sitting
on the floor during lectures. That’s what we are asking for, just like
you have in other countries, even our neighbours here, Benin Republic
and Ghana. That’s what we are asking for.
“We are also saying that lecturers must earn competitive salaries so
that we can have lecturers from all over the world come to our
universities to teach, just like we’re going outside. Those are the
things that we are asking for.
Osodeke said that negotiations with the government had not yielded any
fruit because of actions of some top government officials.
“On two occasions, we have negotiated and reached an agreement with
the team that was set up to meet with us, which did not come from
outer space; a team that was set up by the President. On both
occasions, the government team will not come back to us but will go
out and start misinforming the public. Honestly, we have not had it
this bad since ASUU started having issues with the government,”
Osodeke said.
Did FG renege on earlier agreements?
The Federal Government agreed to inject a total of N1.3 Trillion into
public universities; both state and federal, in six years, starting in
2013 after the union decried the deplorable state of the institutions.
In 2013, the government was to release N200 billion and release N220
billion each year for another five years. But after releasing the
first tranche, the government stopped releasing the funds. In 2017,
it, however, released N20 billion. In 2020, it promised to release N25
billion, ASUU rejected the offer, insisting on N110 billion, which is
50 per cent of the N220 billion that it demanded, but the government
declined, citing paucity of funds.
What is TETFund’s annual receipt?
The money ASUU needs to make our higher education functional is very
small compared to what TETFund, the agency established to meet its
demands, earns in a year. For example, in 2017, TETFund received N154
billion, the tax collection rose steadily to N257 billion in 2018 and
the following years, until in 2022, where the revenue shrunk by N60
billion naira as declared by TETFund’s Executive Secretary Sonny
Echono, a retired Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education.
On August 4, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) said that it
recorded over N60 billion declines in revenue available for its
operations. The Executive Secretary of the Fund, Sonny Echono, said
this in Abuja.
Echono made this known when members of the House of Representatives
Committee on Tertiary Education and Services, led by Hon. Aminu
Suleiman, paid an oversight visit to the fund’s office.
“We witness a steady rise in collections under the education tax but
unfortunately for 2021 there was a sharp drop and that left us in a
very dire position.
“For example, from N154 billion in 2017, the tax collection rose
steadily to N257 billion over the years.
“So by 2020, we’ve got N257 billion; but unfortunately, 2021
collection, which is what we use to operate this year, dropped sharply
to N189 billion.
“So over N60 billion drop revenue or resources available to TETfund,
and the way we operate, 2021 collections are used for 2022
operations,” he said.
Mr Echono said that given the president’s commitment to increased
funding for education with the support of the National Assembly, the
tax rate for 2021 was increased from two per cent to 2.5 per cent. He
expressed optimism that before the end of the administration it would
increase to three per cent. But ASUU says it has not enjoyed any of
this increase in the education tax.
One-stop solution to ASUU strike
For the federal government to solve the ASUU strike which has dented
the national image at home and in the Diaspora, Federal Government
should relinquish the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) to the
university heads to run. Appointment of the Executive Secretary must
be made from inside the academic community by voting based on merit,
rotated in all the geopolitical regions on four-year tenure. This
will take care of all federal government-owned universities,
polytechnics and colleges of education.
Also state governments should establish their parallel trust fund,
namely, State Tertiary Education Trust Fund (STETFund), to take care
of state-owned universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.