TETFUND: ICPC Recovers Misused Grant From Kadpoly Lecturers

About N7.5 million unused grant has been recovered by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) from 11 lecturers of the Kaduna Polytechnic.

The money was reportedly granted under the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) released to the school between 2010 and 2017 for staff capacity development through local and international training.

The investigation was conducted by the ICPC through its North West Zonal office and it was discovered that 11 lectures pocketed the money they received instead of attending the training which was scheduled to hold in

Nigeria and three other countries, including the United States of America, Greece, and United Arab Emirates.

Some of the lecturers collected as much as N1.39 million while others collected between N149, 000 and ₦1, 337,000 under the Academic Staff Training and Development Project.

The Acting Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Musa Usman Abubakar vowed that the commission would put an end to the misuse of TETFUND and other grants in institutions, as he handed over the recovered funds to the Bursar of the institution, Mr. Garba Nabayi.

Dr. Abubakar stated that the investigation of the utilization of TETFUND grants was being carried out in 27 other tertiary institutions in the North-West geopolitical zone of the country to make sure that all grants were properly used, adding that those found wanting of misuse of the grant would be prosecuted.

He said, “Carting away of public funds is one of the things ICPC is fighting. Non-utilization of fund given to lecturers is a crime and lecturers as role models, are to show good behavioural conduct to their students. Beneficiaries of such grant must ensure they go for the training because ICPC will not only recover such funds but will prosecute anybody found culpable”.

He said that the exercise would be carried out in other geo-political zones in the course of time.

Nabayi who received 11 bank drafts for each defaulting lecturer on behalf of the institution, commended ICPC for the prompt intervention that has led to the recovery of the money.

He asked the Commission to spread its investigation to other activities of tertiary institutions, especially the execution of capital project