Construction on the North-Central zonal office in Nasarawa State is expected to begin in January 2023, according to the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
Sonny Echono, the TETFund’s Executive Secretary, revealed this to Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State during a courtesy visit to the fund in Abuja.
TETFund intervention programmes have had a significant positive impact on higher education institutions in Nasarawa State, and Echono was pleased to note that the zonal office would bring North-Central beneficiary institutions closer to the fund.
He expressed gratitude to the governor for granting land for the zonal office in the north-central region.
“Your Excellency kindly approved our request and provided us with land for the North Central zonal office. In January 2023, the building is scheduled to start. It would provide us the chance to meet the people who will benefit from our intervention efforts, he said.
Echono declared that the fund was prepared to improve the performance of public tertiary institutions. He praised President Muhammadu Buhari for his significant contributions to the fund, which resulted in an increase in the education tax to 2.5 percent.
“We also express our profound appreciation to His Excellency, the President, for the wonderful support he has given to TETFund.
“With effect from this year, TETFund is now getting two and a half percent not two percent as education tax, and Mr. President has assured us that before the end of his administration, it will get to three percent,” he said.
Earlier, the governor commended Echono and his predecessor, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro for ensuring that the university benefited from high-impact projects and other regular interventions.
“After I assumed office as governor, I visited here and I told him I need your help. I want to introduce the faculty of engineering and faculty of medicine at the Nasarawa State University but we don’t have the money.
“We got the high impact and we were able to set up the faculties of medicine and engineering at Nasarawa State University. So, I thank the management of TETFund for the support we received.
“Secondly, when I came in, we looked at the courses we have in Nasarawa Polytechnic, now Mustapha Agwai Polytechnic and we did not have one single accreditation on a technical course, and I said we cannot be a polytechnic because polytechnic means many technical.
“We did not have accreditation, and we realized the reason for that, was that we did not have some workshops, buildings, and others.
“I came for assistance from TETFund and today we have four technical courses,” the governor said.
Sule however, said that the education tax would be reviewed to four percent to ensure more robust performance from the fund.
