The Tertiary Education Trust Fund has criticised the call to extend its intervention to Colleges of Agriculture and research institutes, saying it would stifle the fund and render it ineffective.
This was contained in a statement issued by Malam Aliyu Na’Iya, the TETFund’s Acting Executive Secretary, and made available to newsmen on Sunday in Abuja.
The statement explained that the exclusion of the categories of institution mentioned above was in compliance with the TETFund Act of 2011 as amended.
It said five years after amending the ETF Act to establish TETFund, its management was being unduly pressured to bring in new beneficiaries.
It said the TETFund Act as provides inter alia: “This Act repeals the Education Tax Act of 2004 and Education Tax Fund Act of 2003.
“It establishes the Tertiary Education Trust Fund charged with the responsibility of imposing, managing and disbursing the tax to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria.”
The statement said that the TETFund Act was unequivocal and defined tertiary institutions to mean a public University, Polytechnic or College of Education.
Recalling the stance of the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities, the statement said the substance of TETFund intervention was not just giving money to any institution.
The statement said: “If we accept this, we shall be faced with newer interpretations and definitions.”
The statement quoted the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, as saying that the perversion of the original Act caused the failure of the defunct ETF to achieve transformatory intervention.
It said that ASUU gave more reasons why Colleges of Agriculture could not pass for a conventional tertiary institution in its submission to the House of Representatives Committee during the public hearing on the act.
It quoted Ogunyemi as having said: “Federal Colleges of Agriculture were originally conceived to provide skills in such areas as extension services and combating crop and animal diseases though the application of herbicides, pesticides and immunization against rinderpest among others.
“They were never established for the award of academic qualifications and are not empowered by their own laws to do so.
“There are 11 Federal Colleges of Agriculture and 15 Research Institutes under the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, an agency of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
“In addition, there are allied colleges under the main Ministry of Agriculture.
“These include the 3 Federal Cooperative Colleges in Kaduna, Ibadan and Orji River as well as the Colleges of Land Resources Technology in Kuru and Owerri.”
It appealed to the National Assembly to discourage any amendment of the TETFund Act 2011, saying that such amendment would put more pressure on the Fund.
According to the statement, expanding the list of beneficiaries of the fund to include colleges of agriculture and other institutions will thin out the intervention funds and the impact of the Fund.
It said: “The stand of ASUU, which is the original negotiator that led to the establishment of TETFund should not be disregarded because nobody wants to disrupt the peace within the sector.
“ASUU did not mince words in their submission to the House Committee during the public hearing and this they did to the hearing of all.”
The statement said if the Act was amended to include other beneficiaries, it would lead to burgeoning of request from all kinds of sources, which TETFUND would not be able to address.
It added that TETFUND might be suffocated by too many demands and might not be able to act in transformational manner.
It added: “The proposed amendments, if carried through, could trigger off past abuses whereby the funds of ETF were spent on almost everything outside education while the tertiary institutions were abandoned.
“Once TETFUND is unable to carry out its mandate, the institutions will remain stagnated without much progress.
“This has implications for the international ranking of our universities.”
The statement added that corporate tax payers could be disillusioned and the country would lose the goodwill that TETFUND had so far earned.
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