Abuja – The House of Representatives Committee on Education has asked the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) to furnish it with details of its 2011 and 2012 recurrent and capital expenditures.

The committee was at the Fund’s office as part of its oversight responsibilities.

Dr Rose Okoh, Acting Chairman of the committee, said that the explanation was necessary to enable the committee assess how such funds had been expended by the Fund during the period under review.

“We note that in the presentation you sent to us, we have absolutely no information on your capital, whether it is of 2011 or 2012. So that leaves us with little information to work with except what we have on your recurrent, personnel and overhead.

“Hereafter, we believe that TETFund should be able to provide us with revenue projections for your capital receipts and of course the capital expenditure. All appropriations are projections and the Federal Inland Revenue Service in part provides projections for income tax collectibles.

“And so we do believe that 2 per cent of these collectibles that is supposed to go to TETFund should be computed, and that should be made available to the Committee so as to be able to properly assess the level of implementation of the budget.’’

She said the committee would also like to know the measures put in place by the Fund to ensure that funds released to its beneficiaries were properly utilised.

Okoh said the committee also demanded full details of nominal roll of the Fund to verify the level of compliance with the Federal Character provision on employment.

She said that the committee also requested the Fund to reconcile the gap between its 2011 and 2012 personnel costs.

Okoh expressed the readiness of the committee to continue to work with the Fund for possible amendment of its enabling law, if necessary.

In his remark, the Chairman of the board of directors of the Fund, Dr Musa Babayo, claimed that the Fund had discharged its responsibilities as an intervention agency with diligence and transparency.

Babayo said the more than N591 billion received from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), representing the 2 per cent of the nation’s tax earnings, had been fully domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

He noted that the support received by the Fund had enabled it to discharge its responsibilities.(NAN)