Amid financial corruption, academic staff from public educational institutions across the country have so far accessed over N120 billion for training, within and outside Nigeria, from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) since its inception in 2008.

The Chairman, Board of Trustees of TETFund, Kashim Imam, disclosed this on Wednesday when he led a delegation of the fund to the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) on an assessment visit.

Mr Imam said TETFund was investing N25 billion on academic staff training and development.

He added that the team was in the university for a verification visit to assess the training programmes’ impact through interaction with management and beneficiaries.

He noted that the fund had to suspend the sponsorship of academic staff to international conferences when it discovered that some did not attend despite being funded.

“There are serious infractions, abuses. There are scholars sponsored who simply collected the money but failed to attend such conferences.

“On the account of this, we are forced to suspend the programme. We also find similar infractions with regard to academic staff training,” Mr Imam disclosed.

Also speaking, the TETFund Director of Academic Staff Training Development, Mohammed Suleiman, said the fund had taken measures to ensure more accountability.

The measures include tertiary institutions providing details of scholars sponsored by the fund from 2015 to date, a status report of TETFund scholars within the period under review, financial records and transactions regarding all scholars, copies of thesis, and certificate of assumption of office.

He noted that at UNIMAID, 254 academic staff benefited from TETFund-sponsored training, amounting to N1.35 billion, while 398 benefitted from conferences that cost over N239 million.

While in Maiduguri, the TETFund delegation also paid similar visits to Ramat Polytechnic, Sir Kashim College of Education, and Ibrahim El-kanemi College of Education, Science and Technology.

(NAN)