FG distributes N727bn to higher institutions for infrastructure in 4 years

The minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, has said the federal government has given out over N727 billion to universities, colleges of education and polytechnics between 2015 and 2018 for various infrastructure development.

The minister disclosed this at a Press Conference on Saturday in Abuja.

He said the Federal Government had since the beginning of President Muhammadu Buhari Administration, allocated a total of N727, 225,862,128.86 worth of investment in critical areas of infrastructural development in tertiary institutions, especially in physical infrastructure, project maintenance, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) support, entrepreneurship, library development and special high impact projects, academic staff training and development and research, among others.

He said the monies were allocated through the instrumentality of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), aside from other sources of funding tertiary education such as the Needs Assessment, and Internally Generated Revenues of the institutions, among others.

Explaining the disbursements year in, year out, the minister said  in 2015, each of the 74 public universities (Federal and State), was allocated the sum of N337,000,000 which brought the total allocation to public universities to N24,938,000,000 while in 2016, each public university was allocated N1,009,410,000 which brought the total allocation to N74,696,340,000.

Also, in 2017, each public university was given N659, 150,000 making the total of N48,777,100,000.00 while in 2018, each university in the country was allocated N785,823,700 which eventually led to the total of N58,150,953,800.00, the minister said.

“Total allocations to public universities during the period under review (4 years), therefore, stands at N206, 562,393,800.00,” he said.

In 2015, each of the 50 public polytechnics was allocated N250, 000,000, amounting to twelve billion, five hundred million naira while N691,632,000 was allocated to 54 polytechnics in 2016, amounting to N37,348,128,000, he said.

The sum of N450,800,000 was allocated to each of the 54 polytechnics in 2017, amounting N24,343,200,000 and in 2018, each of the 54 polytechnics got N536,703,502 amounting to N28,981,989,108.

“The total allocation to polytechnics during the period under review stood at N103,173,317,108.00.

I must also report that states’ universities got a total allocation of N74,620,416,900,” he added.

He said, for the colleges of education, the total allocation during the period under review, stood at N101,631,304,500, out of which a further breakdown showed that the colleges  got  N12,485,000,000 in 2015, N37,348,135,000.00 in 2016, N23,743,500,000 in 2017, and N28,054,669,500 in 2018.

“May I at this juncture express the serious concern of the Federal Government over the lack of accountability in some of our tertiary institutions?  Let me reiterate that the Federal Government will not fold its arms to watch public educational institutions funded from the public purse to flout the laws of public accountability.

“I want to put every stakeholder in this regard on notice, that, in the coming weeks, the Federal Ministry of Education under my watch will roll out visitation panels to all tertiary institutions to deal with this ugly phenomenon,” he said.