News – Page 52 – Kwararafa Reporters

70 Dead, 56 Injured In Niger Tanker Explosion – NEMA

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has swiftly deployed an emergency rescue team to Dikko Junction along the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway in Niger State, following a tragic...

Anambra Guber: Ex-Ohanaeze President Endorses Soludo For 2nd Term

News2 months ago

Insecurity: Soludo Launches Special Security Operation, Vigilante Outfit

Governor Chukwuma Soludo has unveiled the Anambra Homeland Security Law 2025 and launched a 2000-men special security operation codenamed, “Udo Ga-AchË” The governor also announced the...

News2 months ago

Zamfara Director of Youth Mobilization for Tinubu Distributes 20 Cars to APC Supporters in Northwest

In a show of appreciation and commitment to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Yazid Shehu Danfulani, the Director of Youth Mobilization for Tinubu in Zamfara...

News2 months ago

Northern Group Blasts Sanusi Over Careless Statement on Tinubu’s Economic Policies

The Northern Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (NPCD) has condemned former Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, for his criticism of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic policies,...

20-Year-Old Woman Kills Co-Wife In Jigawa

News2 months ago

Police Are Prepared For Ondo LG Election, Says CP

The Ondo State Commissioner of Police, Mr Wilfred Afolabi, has declared that the state police command would not tolerate any act of violence during the local...

News2 months ago

Budget Presentation Drama At NASS Unnecessary – IGP Egbetokun

Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun has described the disruption during the Police budget defence at the National Assembly as unnecessary and avoidable, clarifying that the...

News2 months ago

Bauchi Gov Reaffirms Dedication To Citizens’ Access To Quality Healthcare Services

Bauchi State Governor, Sen. Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir, has reiterated his administration’s commitment to ensuring that citizens have access to quality healthcare services, from primary to tertiary...

News2 months ago

2025 Budget Based On 2m Barrels Crude Oil Production– NUPRC

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) says the 2025 budget is predicated on 2.062 million barrels of crude oil production at 75 dollars per barrel....

Abuja—The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has prayed the National Assembly to do all within its capacity to protect the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, from being abrogated under the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024. The union said it was deeply concerned about TETFund because the agency remained a positive testament to its constructive engagements with Nigerian governments since 1992. It insisted that it was its considered view that abrogating the TETFund Act 2011, by design or default, would be a great disservice not just to education but also to Nigeria as a nation. The association’s position was contained in a presentation by its president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, on the second day of the public hearing organised by the National Assembly on Tax Reform Bills in Abuja, yesterday. In the presentation, titled “Debates on the Nigeria Tax Bill, 2024: Our Case for Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund,“ ASUU said it was worried over the proposed abrogation of education tax which, it claimed posed serious threats to the survival of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund. The presentation read: “The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has monitored with keen interest the debates about review of the tax system in the country, as proposed by the Nigeria Tax Bill, 2024, which is currently before the National Assembly. “Of particular interest to our union is the proposed abrogation of education tax which poses serious threats to the survival of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund,TETFund. “From any objective assessment, TETFund has been the backbone for infrastructural development, postgraduate training and research capacity building in Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions in the last one-and-half decades. “Over 90 per cent of capital projects in state and federal colleges of education, polytechnics and universities during this period were TETFund-sponsored. “The intervention agency has also remained the primary source of higher degree training for young academics and support staff since 2011 when the Act establishing the Education Tax Fund, ETF, was re-oriented to its original intendment of an intervention agency for the development of tertiary institutions in Nigeria. “ASUU is seriously worried that the education tax, called development levy, used to bankroll TETFund’s programmes, is about to be ceded to the newly established Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND. “Section 59(3) of the Nigeria Tax Bill (NTB) 2024 states that only 50% of the development levy would be made available to TETFund in 2025 and 2026, while NITDA, NISENI, and NELFUND would share the remaining percentages. ‘’TETFund will also receive 66.7% in 2027, 2028 and 2029 years of assessment but zero per cent in 2030 year of assessment and, thereafter, from 2030, all funds generated from the development levy will be passed to NELFUND! “With all sense of responsibility, ASUU finds this development not only worrisome but also inimical to our national development objective.” ASUU said its position was predicated on a number of reasons, which include the following: “Taking any percentage out of education tax (development levy) to service another agency not known to the TETFund Act 2011 is illegal and should not be allowed to stand. “Giving zero allocation of development levy to TETFund as from 2030 is a technical way of abrogating the agency; the purported admonishment that TETFund should seek innovative ways of generating its funds is spurious and ill-advised because as a creation of an Act, the institution dies without the fund. “Replacing TETFund with NELFUND is comparable to killing a parent to keep a newborn child alive; it is unethical and against the principle of natural justice. “The impact of TETFund on the campus of every tertiary institution in Nigeria is beyond description; abrogating it will take public tertiary education many years back and undermine the modest gains in repositioning Nigerian universities for global reckoning and transformative development. “Annual supports given to tertiary institutions by TETFund have substantially reduced industrial crises in many tertiary institutions; renovation of old facilities and provision of new ones and opportunities for staff development, leading to career advancement, have doused labour-related agitations on our campuses. “TETFund impacts not only tertiary-level education, but also the secondary, down to kindergarten; it directly and/or indirectly supports the production of quality teachers and different categories of support staff in the entire educational system. “The Ghana Education Trust Fund, GETFund, borrowed from the Nigerian experience, while some other African countries have recently visited to understudy TETFund. Nigeria should be improving on the operations and sustainability of the agency, not planning to emasculate or abrogate it.”

News2 months ago

ASUU Describes Tax Bill As A Threat To Public Education

The Zonal Coordinator of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Yola Zone, Dani Mamman has sounded the alarm on the devastating impact of the Nigeria...

News2 months ago

EDUCATION: NUKESS Lauds Gov Idris For Unprecedented Support To Students

The National Union of Kebbi State Students, NUKESS, has expressed profound gratitude to the Governor of Kebbi State, Comrade, Dr. Nasir Idris, Kauran Gwandu, for his...