By Olusegun Lawrence Piqued by revelation that there are so many unexecuted contracts awarded and already paid for by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), the Senate on Wednesday, launched investigation into the matter.
The resolution to probe TETFUND, was sequel to a motion sponsored by Senator Jubril Barau, who revealed how some contractors ran away with public funds without executing contracts awarded to specification.
Consequently, Senate President Bukola Saraki, mandated its Committees on Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and Public Procurement to conduct holistic investigation into award of contracts in the agency.
“I mentioned earlier that we would be focusing on corrupt practices on a weekly basis.
“We would find out if it is lack of capacity on behalf of TETFUND or why security agencies have not done anything on it.
“I recommended the two committees to work on this thoroughly because you are working on behalf of the Senate,” Saraki charged.
Senator Barau had told his colleagues that “In the past years, TEFUND has had to award numerous contracts for the benefit of several higher institutions across the country in keeping with the statute that established the agency.
“These contracts were meant for projects spread across various levels of tertiary institutions such as universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, etc deemed as urgently needed to improve on the quality of teaching, learning and research I the institutions.
“In spite of the good intentions of TETFUND in awarding the contracts, some contractors, who are yet to be identified allegedly collected the project monies and walked away without executing the contracts.
“We are determined that 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 facets of the Nigerian society and bringing culprits to justice.”
