The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, has disclosed that the agency had yet to lift suspension on sponsorship of conference attendance for lecturers in the country.
Bogoro, who made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, noted that investigation into alleged abuse of the intervention was still ongoing.
NAN reports that TETFund had suspended sponsorship of conference attendance for lecturers for a period of six months.
The suspension followed alleged diversion of sponsorship grants given to lecturers to attend local and international conferences.
Conference sponsorship is one of the agency’s interventions meant to enable lecturers to have peer experiences and knowledge sharing from people in other institutions across the globe.
The executive secretary while assuring that the committee set up to investigate the matter was at it, blamed the delay on the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said, “we have not finished the investigation and assessment of what led to it, what were the factors and loopholes in the implementation of that intervention so that we can review and block the leakages.
“The COVID-19 lockdown contributed to slow pace of the work but we hope in a matter of few months we will conclude it and we will let you know the outcome,” he said.
Bogoro expressed concern about the allegation, stressing that it would be unfortunate if the outcome of the investigation confirmed the allegations of abuse and diversion of funds.
He added that it was unacceptable for funds meant for human capital development to be diverted to other uses.(NAN)
