House committee to investigate finances of Kaduna Polytechnic

T

he House of Representatives committee on tertiary education on Monday said it will launch an investigation into the finances of Kaduna Polytechnic; with a view to finding out how funds gotten over time including appropriations and internally generated revenue among others have been utilized.

The committee led by its chairman, Aminu Suleiman during an oversight tour to federal institutions in the state, said Kaduna Polytechnic has lost its true glory. “Though, funding may not be adequate but I am not comfortable with what I saw today (yesterday).

"Why do we have this level of dilapidation, what happened to TETFUND and other funds? We must be persuaded beyond reasonable doubts that funds released over time were appropriately utilized. We are also going to find out why there was no official handing over to the new rector,” he said.

While the rector could not produce the required figures to the committee, Suleiman said that another date would be set for a sub-committee to come back to the polytechnic.

Earlier, the rector of Kaduna Polytechnic, Professor Idris M. Bugaje lamented that he on assumption into office inherited N614million outstanding liability, 50 court cases as well as N615million claims from the Academic Staff Union of the Polytechnic (ASUP).

According to him, the polytechnic today is just a shadow of itself while he decried the high level of infrastructural dilapidation as well as inadequate laboratories among others. He explained that he could not present the figures demanded by the committee because he does not have them. “I could not give the figures because I don’t have them. At the moment, I do not know the account balances of the Polytechnic and this was because there was no proper handing over,”

“There are also issues that must be addressed because they constitute things causing agitation by the unions. There are two forms of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), there is IGR from the regular students and another one for consultancy, that is the evening classes. These people have admitted students and have filled the evening classes and raised hundreds of millions of naira but not a kobo has been left behind to pay the lecturers who do the teaching. Also no money has been left for refreshment for examination. I met an empty treasury and now I am told to wait for the next badge to come, so that I can use their money to pay lecturers who worked in the previous badge,”

“So why won’t ASUP go on strike. The strikes which ASUP was carrying on were necessitated by lack of transparency, so there are serious issues on the finances of the polytechnic. At the moment, there is a petition with the EFCC on the way the finances of the institution has been run in the past years and that is why we are introducing a software, the consultant are already working so that every kobo that enters, whether appropriation or IGR and whatever will be visible to every stakeholder, that way we can monitor and be sure that funds are appropriately utilized. We are changing the entire financial infrastructure of the institution".

Speaking further, he said, “The microfinance bank was another means through which they were siphoning money. In the next coming weeks, the Federal Inland Revenue is going to close down the polytechnic’s microfinance bank because over N16m VAT has been deducted and they have refused to remit it. Some of the boreholes that were said to have been dug, we have not seen them. They have used 2015 clearance of another borehole to approve payment of boreholes that have not been done, so we have to follow all of these gradually, so we need a little time to come up with a comprehensive report because the Polytechnic has been in a mess for over 10 years but we are determined to clean to the mess,” he assured while he sought support of the committee, noting that a committee chaired by the registrar has been set up to confirm the liabilities.

He however explained that this year, N68million was appropriated for capital projects in the polytechnic out of which only N4million has been released. “But since I came in October, they did not bother to spend the N4million because the focus has been on IGR due to the poor accountability of the IGR,” he said while he appealed for release of the remaining funds so that uncompleted projects can be completed.   

Responding, the committee chairman, Suleiman asked the rector to speedily prepare a comprehensive report; saying, “We are not limiting it to your own investigation or security agencies, we are going to carry out our own investigation because we swore to make appropriation, watch over it and ensure judicious utilization. If every system gets rotten, the academia should be an exception and we cannot go into appropriation for Kaduna Polytechnic with this decay,” he said.