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| Dr. Baffa |
Dr. Abdullahi Baffa, the Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), says the fund is committed to ensuring transparency in its operations by making information available to the public.
Baffa said this when he received two Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Basic Rights Watch and Connected Development (CODE) in his office in Abuja on Thursday.
He said the fund would in September introduce a monthly publication as a way of making information available to the public and its stakeholders on its activities.
“The monthly publication will be submitting raw information about all the approvals given in the previous month, all the disbursements made and all completed projects in the previous month.
“It will also include all the scholars that have travelled and returned and all the conferences that have been approved among other activities of the fund.
“The monthly publication will be giving raw information to the public as well as sensitising them’’.
Baffa said this when he received two Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Basic Rights Watch and Connected Development (CODE) in his office in Abuja on Thursday.
He said the fund would in September introduce a monthly publication as a way of making information available to the public and its stakeholders on its activities.
“The monthly publication will be submitting raw information about all the approvals given in the previous month, all the disbursements made and all completed projects in the previous month.
“It will also include all the scholars that have travelled and returned and all the conferences that have been approved among other activities of the fund.
“The monthly publication will be giving raw information to the public as well as sensitising them’’.
According to Baffa, the publication will be distributed to all beneficiary institutions and all stakeholders.
“For us, transparency is number one, not just making the information available to Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and CSOs but making the information available directly to the public.
“In August, we will produce the July edition of TETFund digest. We will work on back issues to cover for January to June, so each month we may be producing two issues.’’
Baffa thanked the organisations for their desire to collaborate with the fund, assuring them that they would work together.
The executive secretary also noted that the fund had close relationships with other Education Based CSOs.
Earlier, Mr Austin Ekwujuru, the Chief Executive Officer, Basic Rights Watch, said the aim of their visit was to seek partnership with TETFund .
Ekwujuru said the relationship would help the organisations monitor the intervention funds going into institutions and how they were used.
He added that they also wanted to know the challenges associated with the 2016 intervention funds and why some universities had not received their intervention fund.
According to him, the visit is also to improve information sharing between the fund and the organisations.
Also speaking, Mr Hamzat Lawal, the Chief Executive Officer, CODE said that their visit was also to seek partnership with the fund.
Lawal said the partnership was an avenue where citizens, government and CSOs could engage and ensure that some of the key policies of government were met.
“We want to see how we can explore collaboration with your office and colleagues so that citizens can be better informed and most importantly, so that citizens can contribute toward good governance.”
He said the media was one of their key partners as they help in informing citizens of government activities.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Basic Rights Watch is a NGO that tracks implementation of government intervention in the education sector.
CODE is also an organisation that empowers rural communities with access to information, as well as breaches the gap between government and the people for informed decision making.
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