Posted by Onyedi Ojiabor and Oluyinka Akintunde, Abuja on
The Education Tax Fund disbursed over N45billion in the country between 1999 and 2005, the fund's report on allocations and disbursements report has revealed.
The Education Tax Fund disbursed over N45billion in the country between 1999 and 2005, the fund's report on allocations and disbursements report has revealed.
The report, which was exclusively obtained by our correspondents in Abuja, showed that the disbursements represent 73.3 per cent of the total allocations of N60.638bil-lion to the benefitting education institutions in the last six years.
The beneficiaries of the funds are universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, monotechnics, ministries of education in the 36 States Primary Education Boards and the Federal Capital Territory.
The main source of funds for the ETF, which was established via Act No. 7 of 1993 and amended by Act 40 of 1998, is the two per cent education levy from profits of companies collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
ETF's Assistant Director, Public Relations, Mr. Jacob Alada, explained that the funds were normally disbursed in line with Federal Government's directive of equitable disbursement of funds.
'I think ETF, with all sense of responsibility and modesty, has made a landmark impact on the education sector in the country," he said.
Alada explained that, as a matter of policy, 'ETF does not determine what any university should do in terms of project execution."
He said that, in critical area of library funding, the ETF board could, in its wisdom, ask a university to use a specified amount of funds for procurement of books.
'Ordinarily, ETF does not determine what projects are executed in any institution. What happens is that these institutions send proposals of projects they intend to execute for a given year to ETF," he added.
He said that selection of projects, award of contracts and execution of projects were outside the jurisdiction of ETF.
Alada noted that an institution might be denied the right to benefit from ETF funds if the funds disbursed previously were not judiciously utilised.
The details of the ETF report revealed that the fund disbursed N8.932billion, N4.365billion and N7.716billion to the benefiting institutions in 1999, 2000 and 2001, out of N8.991 billion, N4.802billion and N8.336billion allocated to it.
The institutions also received N16.70billion, N4.641billion and N3.334 billion from the ETF in 2002, 2003 and 2004, out of the allocations of N17.311billion, N10.040billion and N11.158 billion.
A total of N14.948billion has, however, not been disbursed by the agency to the affected institutions as at July 13, 2005.
According to the ETF record, about N59million; N437million; N620million; N611million; N5.399billion and N7.824billion were not disbursed in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.
The zonal analysis of the ETF allocations to benefiting institutions between 1999 and 2004 showed that the highest allocations of N8.758billion were recorded by the South-West, followed closely by the North-West with N8.371billion.
The North-Central, South-South, South-East and North-East Zones were allocated N8.126billion, N7.301 billion, N6.258 billion and N6.169billion respectively. Government agencies accounted for N15.574billion of the total allocations.
Of the N60.638billion ETF intervention projects, 36 States' Primary Education Boards and the FCT accounted for the highest allocation of N12.528billion (about 20.6 per cent) in the last six years.
The ETF allocated N11.128billion to the universities, N7.65billion to states and FCT Senior Secondary Education, N5.479billion to polytechnics, N5.157 billion to colleges of education, N1.613billion to monotechnics, and N833million for special projects.
Other institutions accounted for the remaining allocations of N15.575 billion in the last six years.
State-by-State analysis of the ETF funds showed that Kaduna State received the highest allocation of N2.251billion, out of which N1.881billion was disbursed.
Lagos and Kano States closely followed with allocations of N2.189billion and N2.084billion, respectively, out of which N1.896billion and N1.864billion were released to institutions in the states.
Institutions in Oyo, Borno, Niger, Imo and Ogun States were allocated N1.849billion, N1.719 billion, N1.557billion, N1.546billion and N1.528billion during the period, out of which N1.557 billion, N1.429billion, N1.365 billion, N1.201billion and N1.262billion were disbursed by the ETF.
The ETF also disbursed N1.102billion, N1.242 billion, N1.010billion, N1.022billion, N1.117billion and N1.223billion to institutions in Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi and Benue States, out of allocations of N1.331billion, N1.420 billion, N1.305billion, N1.336 billion, N1.294billion and N1.412billion.
Institutions in Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Federal Capital Territory and Gombe also received N1.036billion, N1.149bil-lion, N664.15million, N1.105billion, N869.01mil-lion, N940.84 million, N844.16million and N520.49million from ETF, as against their allocations of N1.23 billion, N1.296billion, N870.88million, N1.249billion, N1.118 billion, N1.319billion, N1.021billion and N560.67million.
The PUNCH, Tuesday, July 26, 2005