By Felix Khanoba
Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, has received more than N8 billion in direct allocations from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for a range of interventions over the years.
This was revealed at the weekend by Rt. Hon. Sunday Adeyemi Adepoju, a member of TETFund’s Board of Trustees representing the South-West Zone, during a visit to Owo, Ondo State. Adepoju also commissioned five newly completed projects valued at N1.72 billion.
Commending both past and present administrations of the Polytechnic, Adepoju praised their dedication to executing TETFund-sponsored projects, noting that none of the projects on campus had been left uncompleted or in distress.
He, however, cautioned state governments against establishing new tertiary institutions without adequate funding plans, emphasizing that TETFund’s role is to provide support, not to shoulder the entire financial responsibility of such institutions.
According to him, “we are assembled here today for the commissioning of Five (5) iconic projects sponsored by TETFund, whose total cost is N1,725,730,426.38. You may wish to know also that from the start of TETFund interventions to this polytechnic, the Fund has allocated a total of N8,186,776,383.10 for infrastructure-based projects only. Out of this, a total of N5,576,638,910.74 have been accessed, leaving a balance of N2,610,137,472.37 most of which are already committed.”
“As a Board, we are resolutely committed to ensuring that no projects of the Fund are abandoned, and this is why, in very recent time, the Board approved allocations to enable beneficiary institutions with distressed projects complete their projects without further delays. We are quite confident that with the augmentations granted by the Board of Trustees, those challenged projects will be completed for utilization by students and other stakeholders in the affected institutions.
“Our resolve as a Fund is to ensure that our interventions are sustained and improved upon as much as possible to enable our institutions undertake bigger, and more laudable and impactful projects that will make them become globally competitive and situate themselves in enviable positions among their peers both nationally and globally. We shall continually engage with our beneficiary institutions towards ensuring the delivery of iconic and impactful intervention projects in subsequent intervention years,” he added.
In his remarks, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc. Sonny S.T. Echono, represented by the Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Arc. Babatunde Olajide, described the completion of TETFund projects as proof of a shared commitment to improving tertiary education in Nigeria and providing conducive environments for teaching, learning, and research.
Congratulating the Polytechnic on its combined convocation for 12 sets of graduates (from the 12th to 23rd sets), Echono noted that the nation’s current economic situation has slowed project delivery due to fluctuating market conditions that often require contract reviews.
While acknowledging these challenges, he commended institutions that have shown resilience and prudence in completing their projects despite the difficulties.
“I am pleased to commend the effort of the TETFund Board of Trustees who saw the earlier highlighted challenge and approved some allocations to assist institutions struggling with the completion of their projects. Recently, through the dexterity and humaneness of the Board, meetings were held in the past few weeks to listen to beneficiaries with challenging problems of completion of their projects, with a view to jointly work out solutions to completing them.
“This effort is already beginning to yield fruit. As a Fund we will continue to give vent to the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration by being innovative and delivering interventions that will strongly impact on teaching, learning and research and supporting every effort at training students and equipping them with requisite skills to meet the technical manpower demands of these contemporary times,” Arc. Echono added.
Other officials from TETFund who joined in commissioning the projects included Alhaji Abdulmumuni Oniyangi, Director of Public Affairs; Engr. Tunde Olakunri, Director, Executive Secretary’s Office; Dr. Olushola Ojo, representing the South-West Zonal Office; and Dr. Abosede Bello from the Physical Infrastructure Department, among others.
