The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), has recovered N7.5 million unused grant from 11 lecturers of the Kaduna Polytechnic.
A statement by the Spokesperson for the Commission, Mrs. Rasheedat A. Okoduwa Wednesday said the money was part of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) grant released to the school between 2010 and 2017 for staff capacity development through local and international training.
ICPC, through its North West Zonal office which coordinated the investigation on the utilization of TETFUND grants in the institution, found that the 11 lecturers failed to attend the training despite having received monies.
The training were 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 N1, 337,000 under the Academic Staff Training and Development Project.
The Acting Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Musa Usman Abubakar who handed over the recovered funds to the Bursar of the institution, Mr. Garba Nabayi, said that ICPC would ensure tertiary institutions in the country stop the misuse of TETFUND and other grants.
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,” the statement read.
He noted that the exercise would spread to institutions 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 projects.
