Senate probes contract scam in TETFund

Senate on Wednesday ordered probe of contractors who allegedly collected monies from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND in the past and failed to deliver the projects for which they were paid.
Against this background, the Senate mandated its Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TetFund to ensure thorough investigation into the alleged contract fraud and report its findings and recommendations for further action.

The probe of the contract scam in TETFund, according to it was in strict compliance with the recent pronouncement of the President of the Senate towards the renewed commitment of the senate to exposing corrupt practices in all the facets of the Nigerian society and bringing culprits to justice.

This came after it adopted a motion entitled: “The need for an investigative audit in respect of contracts that were awarded and paid for in the past TETFund but are yet to be executed”, sponsored by Senator Jibrin Barau (APC Kano North).

Leading debate on the motion, Senator Barau noted that “in the past years, the Tertiary Institutions Intervention Fund, TetFund has had to award numerous contracts for the benefits of several higher institutions across the country in keeping with the statute that established the agency.”

According to him, “These contracts were meant for projects spread across various levels of tertiary institutions such as universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, deemed as urgently needed to improve on the quality of teaching, learning and research in the institutions.”

Barau noted that in spite of the good intention of TETFund in awarding the contracts, some of the contractors, who are yet to be identified, allegedly collected the project monies and walked away without executing the contracts.

He said the senate was “conscious of the existing deficits in the infrastructural needs of all tertiary institutions in the country, and the allegations that some contractors that were awarded contracts by TET Fund have absconded with monies given to them for the contracts without executing the jobs.”