The Benin Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities has said that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund may go into extinction if the National Assembly passes the tax reform presented by the executive arm of government.
The Zonal Coordinator of the Zone, which is made up of nine universities in Edo, Delta and Ondo states, Professor Monday Igbafen, stated this on Friday at a press conference held at the University of Benin.
Igbafen said that ASUU is not comfortable with the provisions of Section 59 (3) of the bill, which states that only 50 per cent of the development levy would be made available to TETFUND in 2025, while National Information Technology Development Agency, National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, and National Education Loan Fund will share the remaining percentage
He added, “The consequence of the section is that TETFUND will be 66 per cent in 2027, 2028, 2029 year of assessment and 0 per cent thereafter, especially from 2030.”
He said ASUU conceptualised TETFUND and brought it to the reputation it has attained today in terms of infrastructural transformation and intellectual development of universities in the country.
He added, “Since its formation, TETFUND has indisputably remained the cornerstone of the rapid transformation of tertiary institutions in terms of manpower, infrastructural and academic development.
“In fact, TETFUND impacts not only tertiary-level education but also secondary, down to kindergarten; it directly and/or indirectly supports the production of quality teachers and different categories of support staff in the entire educational system.
“While the Nigerian people are in the wilderness over the recalcitrance of the government to resolve the unresolved issues arising from the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, our union, ASUU, is worried by the inclusion of the “death” of TETFUND, effective 2030, in a tax reform bill that has become an albatross to the Tinubu government.
“We are calling for mass resistance against this potent threat to the life-wire of tertiary education in our country because the impeding abrogation of TETFund will take public tertiary education many years back and undermine the modest gains in repositioning Nigerian universities for global reckoning and transformative development.
“Education is a public good and the government must not be allowed to destroy Nigerian tertiary education.”
