By Funmilayo Adeyemi

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) says it will commence the construction of its North-Central zonal office in Nasarawa State in January 2023.

The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, made this known during  a courtesy visit to the fund by Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State in Abuja.

Echono expressed delight over the tremendous impact of TETFund intervention projects in tertiary education institutions in Nasarawa State, saying the zonal office would bring beneficiary institutions in the North-Central region closer to the fund.

He thanked the governor for allocating land for the construction of the north central zonal office.

“Your Excellency graciously approved and allocated land to us as the North Central zonal office. We plan to commence construction in January 2023.

” It will afford us the opportunity to get closer to beneficiaries of our intervention projects,” he said.

Echono said the fund was ready to reposition public tertiary education institutions for better performance.

He lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for his massive support to the fund which had seen an upward review of education tax to two and half per cent.

“We also  express our profound appreciation to His  Excellency, the President, for the wonderful support he has given to TETFund.

“With effect from this year, TETFund is now getting two and half per cent not two per cent as education tax, and Mr President has assured us that before the end of his administration, it will get to three per cent,” he said.

Earlier, the governor commended Echono and his predecessor, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro for ensuring that the university benefited from high impact projects and other regular interventions.

“After I assumed office as governor, I visited here and I told him I need your help. I want to introduce the faculty of engineering and faculty of medicine at the Nasarawa State University but we don’t have the money.

“We got the high impact and we were able to set up the faculties of medicine and engineering in Nasarawa State University. So, I thank the management of TETFund for the support we received.

“Secondly, when I came in, we looked at the courses we have in Nasarawa Polytechnic, now Mustapha Agwai Polytechnic, and we did not have one single accreditation on technical course, and I said we cannot  be a polytechnic because polytechnic means many technical.

“We did not  have accreditation, and we realised the reason for that, was  that we did not have some workshops, buildings, and others.

“I came for assistance from TETFund and today we have four technical courses,” the governor said.

Sule however, said that education tax would be reviewed to four per cent to ensure more robust performance from the fund. (NAN)