The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Mr Sonny Echono, Tuesday, dropped a hint of the planned suspension of foreign scholarships for two years due to the high exchange rate.
He said that consultations were ongoing on the issue.
He also said that the Fund was owed the sum of N323 by the
federal government having borrowed over N371.3 billion out of which it has paid
N48 billion.
Echono spoke at a public hearing organized by an ad-hoc
committee of the House of Representatives on the alleged missing N2.3 trillion
in TETFUND.
It will be recalled that the House had last Tuesday set up
the Committee, headed by Hon. Oluwole Oke, to investigate the alleged abuse of
N2.3 trillion generated from the Tertiary Education Tax by the Fund from 2011
to 2023.
He said that it was difficult accessing foreign exchange
from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) even though the proceeds of their tax
accruals generated on their behalf by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS)
is domiciled in the apex.
According to the Fund, the CBN always insisted they sourced
their own forex to pay fees for scholars abroad.
Echono therefore urged the panel to intervene on their
behalf.
He informed that the Fund will resort to local institutions
for scholarships trainings.
He said: “We operate a system where our forex is being sold
on our behalf at an official rate and we apply like anybody else to get it,
sometimes it leads to additional cost.
“Currently, as I speak, we are in consultations with all our
stakeholders to suspend foreign training for a year or two. This is because of
the recent exchange rate adjustments, we are unable to continue based on our
disbursement guideline. The money we allocated in naira cannot cover the dollar
requirement for training.Those who are currently there, we now need more naira
to pay for the dollar that is required for their annual fees. We are trying to
put a hold.
“Most of our training now will be done locally through our
experienced, first-generation universities and other specialized universities
based here. This way we can retain our resources in house and cope with the
change of foreign exchange variation.
“Some of the scholars that have been sponsored,
unpatriotically when they go, they enjoy our scholarship, acquire a higher
degree, they refuse to come back, it has become a major crisis.
“We are working with the staff unions for stringent and
effective measures to be taken; currently before you are sponsored, you are
made to sign a bond.
“The scholarship requires that you will come back. It is
required that you have a guarantor and in many cases the guarantor has suffered
undue hardship because when you disappear, we hold the guarantor to pay all the
money expended on your behalf but that has not been effective.
“We believe that a system where we work with our embassies
and the institutions, we can enforce the repayment for those who insist they
will not come back.
“If they don’t, we will declare them ‘persona non grata’. We
will write to the embassies and they will make it available to those countries
and they will not be able to get jobs. They will be seen as fugitives of law
from their countries.
“We may have to take that hard stand because the numbers are
alarming. We just checked about 40 institutions and over 137 absconders and the
review is ongoing.
“It is a huge number that we cannot afford and so we will be
seeking your support to strengthen some of the existing regulations to ensure
that those who benefit from this programme must come back.
“We are not against people looking for greener pastures but
do so on your own, not through our scholarship or through our sponsorship”.
Speaking on alleged missing of N2.3 trillion in TETFUND,
Echono said the allegations were unfounded.
According to him, the actual sum generated from education
tax from 2011 to 2022 was N2.476 trillion out of which the Federal Inland
Revenue Service (FIRS) retained N99 billion as cost of collection.
He said that the government had since 2013 borrowed N371.3
billion from the Fund out of which it has paid N48 billion so far.
“We do have challenges but these challenges and they have
nothing to do with fraud. They are basically issues of governance and I would
start by explaining what the challenges are. First in absolute terms so we have
a clear picture of what we are talking about. From the year 2011 to 2022 total
education tax collected by the FIRS as presented to us in their documentations,
as confirmed from the statements we received from the Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN) which we have also attached for the Committee to peruse is N 2, 476, 733,
181, 679.75.
“Out of this amount, a total sum of N99 billion were
retained by FIRS as cost of collection, leaving a balance of N2.37 trillion.
So, the total fund that had hit education pool account at the CBN is N2.3
trillion from 2011 to date
“However, the FG over time in the course of governance and
to meet pressing needs has borrowed funds from these accounts. The total
borrowing is approximately N371.339 billion. These borrowings happened over
time and most of the borrowings started in 2013.
“The FG acknowledges that it was borrowing and we have full
documentation of this and all the correspondences that accompanied it. Other
borrowings since then are being tabulated and given to you. We did secure
presidential approval for the refund of this borrowing since 2015 and the FG
has been refunding albeit in piecemeal.
“To date, total borrowing is over N371 billion. But total
repayment to this date is about N48 billion. Last year N12.8 billion was given
to us, this year another N12.89 billion was given to us. They are just paying.
God knows how long this will take to defray the principal amount”, Echono said.