The House of Representatives yesterday set up an ad hoc committee to investigate an alleged abuse of N2.3 trillion generated from the Tertiary Education Tax by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) from 2011 to 2013.
The committee is to report back within four weeks for further legislative action.
The House took the action following the adoption of a motion to carry out the probe, sponsored by Olusola Fatoba, David Fouh and Zakari Nyampa.
The Green Chamber of the National Assembly recalled that the Tertiary Education Tax was introduced as a special corporate tax to provide specialised funding for tertiary education in Nigeria, including capital projects, research and development, among others.
It said the tax was introduced following the repealing of Education Tax Act, which established the Education Trust Fund to impose Education Tax on Nigerian companies at the rate of 2.5 per cent of the assessable profit for annual assessment.
The House also recalled that in 2011, the Education Tax Act was repealed and replaced with Tertiary Education Trust Fund Establishment, Act in 2021, the Finance Act 2021, increasing the applicable Tertiary Education Tax rate from 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent.
The Green Chamber said it was aware that since the establishment of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund in 2011, the fund had earned trillions of naira as revenue.
It alleged that the fund had suffered numerous financial abuses in its operations, award of contracts and execution of projects.
The House said it was aware that the Standard Operating Procedure within the fund was porous and did not create a platform for proper supervision of projects domiciled with tertiary institutions.
The motion reads: “The House further notes that these abuses, actions, inactions and infractions have resulted in the misappropriation of funds and unjust enrichment of funds worth about N2.3 trillion.
“The House is worried that if urgent steps are not taken to investigate the allegations, the decay of the tertiary education system will continue to increase, thus resulting in strike actions, substandard institutions, lack of faith in the system, migration of talented youths and total collapse of the Education system arising from gross abuse of a laudable special intervention programmes and aspiration of the President to provide opportunities to young people through quality tertiary education.”
