10th Assembly – Kwararafa Reporters

Suspension: Akpabio Challenges Court’s Jurisdiction To Hear Natasha’s Suit

ABUJA—The Senate President, Mr Godswill Akpabio, has challenged the jurisdiction of a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to hear the suit by the suspended lawmaker...

Akpoti-Uduaghan: No Formal Petition Against Akpabio — Senate

Top News1 week ago

Akpoti-Uduaghan: No Formal Petition Against Akpabio — Senate

Abuja-The Chairman of Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Yemi Adaramodu, (APC, Ekiti South), said yesterday there was currently no formal petition against the Senate...

Tax Reforms: CSOs Laud Senate, Reps Leadership Over Fair Public Hearing

News1 week ago

Tax Reforms: CSOs Laud Senate, Reps Leadership Over Fair Public Hearing

The Situation Room on Economic Reforms, a coalition of 100 civil society groups in Nigeria, has commended the National Assembly Committees on Finance for conducting a...

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 weeks ago

ASUU To NASS: Protect TETFund From Abrogation Under Nigeria Tax Bill 2024

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,...

News2 weeks ago

Tinubu Not NASS Blocked My Ministerial Appointment – El-Rufai

Former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has said that President Bola Tinubu, not the National Assembly, was responsible for his exclusion from the ministerial list. Speaking...

Tax Reforms: CESJET, 50 Other CSOs Lead Support For Tinubu’s Bills At Senate Public Hearing

News2 weeks ago

Tax Reforms: CESJET, 50 Other CSOs Lead Support For Tinubu’s Bills At Senate Public Hearing

As the tax reform bills continue to generate interest across the country, the Centre for Economic and Social Justice (CESJET) and 50 other civil society organizations...

Tax Reform Bills: ACF Recommends Retention Of 7.5% VAT

News2 weeks ago

Tax Reform Bills: ACF Recommends Retention Of 7.5% VAT

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has recommended the retention of the 7.5% rate of Value added Tax (VAT) in the Tax Reforms Bills. ACF’s submission was...

USAID B'Haram Controversy: Nigeria May Miss $603m Fund, Senate Summons Service Chiefs

News3 weeks ago

USAID B’Haram Controversy: Nigeria May Miss $603m Fund, Senate Summons Service Chiefs

Nigeria’s access to a $602.95m grant for 2025 from the United States Agency for International Development is now uncertain, following a 90-day suspension of all agency...

Senate Begins Public Hearing On Tax Reform Bills Monday

News3 weeks ago

Senate Begins Public Hearing On Tax Reform Bills Monday

ABUJA- The Senate will next Monday and Tuesday conduct a public hearing on tax reform bills forwarded to both chambers of the National Assembly by President...

News4 weeks ago

National Assembly Passes 54.9trn 2025 Budget

The National Assembly has passed the N54.9 trillion budget for the 2025 financial year, increasing the initial proposal by N700 billion from N54.2 trillion. The budget...