The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has refuted media reports alleging the deliberate omission of names from the N3.8 billion bailout fund approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for stranded TETFund scholars abroad.
In a statement on Friday in Abuja, Director of Public Affairs Abdulmumin Oniyangi addressed claims of malfeasance in the scholarship allocations for Nigerian lecturers sponsored under the TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS) program.
The statement specifically highlighted the case of Kamal Adewole Saka, a lecturer at Federal University, Oye Ekiti, who was awarded a TETFund scholarship for a Ph.D. in Psychology at Girne American University, Cyprus, amounting to N27,573,350.00.
The Fund noted that Saka has recently been in the media accusing TETFund staff of “embezzling his N10 million scholarship grant.” In reality, his full tuition had been paid directly to the institution on November 3, 2022.
“Although the Fund had reported expending over N3.8 billion as a bailout for approximately 1,500 stranded Nigerian scholars studying abroad under the TSAS program to mitigate the effects of the current exchange rate, in compliance with the President’s directive, it has become necessary to provide detailed background and steps taken by the Fund and specifically address the misinformation being spread by Kamal Adewole Saka,” Oniyangi stated.
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He mentioned that the Fund had requested a status update on the implementation of the TETFund Scholarship for Academic Staff Intervention Programme to reconcile its records and address genuine and verifiable challenges.
“Unfortunately, the feedback from beneficiary institutions on this request has been unsatisfactory, which led to several reminders being sent to these institutions.
“So far, a total of 84 beneficiary institutions have responded to the Fund’s request.
“The Honourable Minister of Education (HME), through a letter No. FME/PSE/720/C.2/IV/713 dated October 30, 2023, approved the processing of bailout requests from beneficiary institutions for shortfalls in tuition and upkeep previously approved for verified scholars, to address their financial challenges.
“All TETFund beneficiary institutions were instructed to compile and forward details of eligible scholars for bailout to the Fund for compliance with the Minister’s approval. As a result of the Minister’s approval, a total of 1,476 scholars were processed for bailout, and the sum of N3,897,282,932.00 was disbursed to the concerned scholars (i.e., ongoing Masters and PhD students only).
“It is important to mention that this bailout was an extra-budgetary expenditure. Consequently, the Fund sought the approval of the Honourable Minister of Education (HME) to utilize stabilization funds to cover part of the variations in tuition and upkeep allowances in the absence of the Board of Trustees.
“The bailout processed so far was activated based on substantiating documents presented for the concerned scholars,” he stated.
