The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Funding

  • ESUT needs more funding to grow, says VC

    ESUT needs more funding to grow, says VC

    It was in the presence of 11,458 graduands combined from the 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 academic sessions that the Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime, praised Prof Cyprian Onyeji for contributing to the development of Enugu State University of Technology (ESUT) in the last five years.

    However, the vice-chancellor said the university would achieve even more with greater financial investment.

    Governor Chime, who was represented by the Deputy Governor, Rev Ralph Nwonye, at the university’s 16th Convocation, had praised Onyeji and the governing council for academic excellence, physical infrastructural development and maintenance, improved funding and staff and students’ welfare in the period under review.

    He described ESUT as an embodiment of what a higher educational institution is all about, which tallies with the government’s policy to deliver quality education to its citizens.

    Onyeji attributed his success to the ability to motivate the workers to run with his six-point agenda.

    He also praised Governor Chime and other government agencies, such as TETFund, PTDF, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), and NCC for their support over the years.

    “Your exemplary leadership set us on the way to success and we have been able to efficiently and effectively utilise the available resources to progressively nurture some of the best  graduates in Nigeria today,” he said.

    However, Onyeji said the university needs more funding to get “there.”

    “ESUT, infrastructure wise, is a work-in-progress. What we have done is to reverse the declining tide and put it on the irreversible part of growth.  In other words, the base has been thoroughly solidified. It now requires another round of massive funding to kick-start those projects not yet embarked upon, as contained in the University Master Plan,” he said.

    With the kind of funding not likely to come from government alone, the Vice-Chancellor appealed to the private sector, alumni, friends of the university, and Enugu State citizens to support  the university financially so it can achieve its goals.

    Also underscoring the need for more funding for the university, the Chancellor of ESUT, Ambassador Hassan Adamu, Wakili of Adamawa, explained that no university, the world over, survives only on government subvention.

    “It has always been a joint effort between the governments, private organisations and internally generated revenue (IGR) of the university,” he said.

    The Pro-Chancellor, Dr. Chilo Offiah, added:  “The university system requires funding as it grows in size and that it is very obvious that the government effort will never be sufficient both now and in the future. Therefore, independent sources of funding should remain critical to our survival and the survival of the Nation.”

    Among the 11,458 graduands, 10,920 had first degrees; 109, Postgraduate Diploma; 414, Masters, and 15, Ph.D.

    Four prominent Nigerians were conferred with honorary doctorates in Public Administration and Business Administration.They are: Sir David Ogbodo, Nicholas Okoye, Ambassador Ademu Aliyu, and Mrs Ukamaka Okoye, the first woman to be honoured by the varsity.

    Dignitaries at the event included: former Minister  of  Power Prof  Bath Nnaji; his Minister of Petroleum and Education counterpart, Prof Jubril Aminu; Prof Giwa and vice chancellors from over 20 universities.

  • Experts make case for improved health sector funding

    There is an urgent need to improve social investment, especially in the area of healthcare delivery system across all levels of government.

    Giving this suggestion at the weekend was a cross-section of experts.

    The event was at a public forum in Lagos tagged: ‘Putting Health Issues on the Election front burner in Lagos state’

    Addressing journalists at the forum, Hon. Avoseh Hodewu Suru, Chairman, House Committee on Health Services, Lagos State House of Assembly, while giving a scorecard of investment in the Lagos state healthcare sector in the last four years, observed that the state government has achieved modest success thus far.

    According to him, the state government has invested a lot in terms of infrastructure such as flagship primary healthcare centres. “Today, there are 56 flagship primary healthcare centres running 24 hours service. The 24 general hospitals are also working optimally. LASUTH is there, the tertiary institution is doing well. Just last week, the Lagos state commissioned an annex of LASUTH in Gbagada, the Cardiac and Renal Centre, the first of its kind in the West African sub-region.”

    Avoseh, who was part of the Presidential Health Summit on Universal Health Coverage, while noting that the whole idea of a free healthcare was deceitful, however impressed on government and the organised private sector, the need to commit more funding, in terms of provision of such amenities as could help boost healthcare service delivery across the country.

    Speaking earlier, Ayodele Adebusoye, Director, Innovation Matters Limited/ Lagos State Civil Society Partnership (LACSOP), the convener of the forum, said the Lagos state government should step up efforts aimed at funding family planning consumables in the state, stressing that such move could help save lives as well as scarce resources.

    “As the Lagos state citizens head for the presidential and national assembly polls and gubernatorial and state assembly, the LACSOP and its technical partner, Innovation Matters Limited at a meeting with civil society actors in the health sector reiterates the need for concerted efforts at all levels of government to increase funding support for healthcare delivery in the state.”

    Going down memory lane, Adebusoye recalled that during the Nigerian family planning conference, the Federal Ministry of Health launched Nigeria’s Family Planning Blueprint, the goal of which is to increase the usage of FP from 15-36 per cent by 2018.

    “By funding FP consumables and reaching its share of Nigeria’s FP blueprint, Lagos will avert 700, 000 unintended pregnancies, prevent 79, 000 unsafe abortions, save the lives of over 2, 300 mothers and 28, 000 children, save more than N11billion in healthcare costs. Every N1 spent on more effective methods, including implants and IUDs, could save over N1, 358 in near-term health costs.”

    On his part, Ayodele Adesanmi, Media Officer, Development Communications Network/NOTAGAIN Campaign, said improving access to maternal healthcare was critical in the nation’s quest to stem the tide of needless death among women and children.

  • ‘Education funding too poor’

    ‘Education funding too poor’

    A school administrator, Mrs Grace Edun, has challenged the government to allocate more funds to the education sector for meaningful development to take place.

    Mrs Edun of Grace High School Gbagada, Lagos, said this in a meeting with some of her school’s stakeholders. The current budgetary allocation to education, she said, is below the standard of other countries and gives little consideration to the poor.

    She said: “We need to improve funding for education (in order) to give poor parents and students opportunity to enjoy the dividends of democracy. If we want meaningful development we must increase funding for education. I remember when we took our students to Singapore, we discovered that they spend about 20 per cent of their budget on education, yet Nigeria spends only 8 per cent on education.”

    Mrs Edun believed that the change will lift the nation’s educational system to world standard and earn international respect.

    She urged candidates jostling for political positions in the forthcoming elections to give preference to education sector and focus on the need to eradicate corruption, mismanagement and waste in the nation in their campaigns rather than personality attacks.

    “It is important to return to the good old days when our educational system was well-respected worldwide.

    “Let the politicians address issues instead of abusing one another (because) we are looking for someone to help us give hope to our children and our nation,” she said.

    Mrs Edun also underscored the importance of introducing more foreign languages into school curricula to keep up with international trends and promote global peace. She explained that her school introduced Mandarin as a subject because it is the language that is currently gaining more recognition because of the growing importance of China in world trade and politics.

    She said: “It is in line with international standard that we decided to introduce Chinese language. Some people have been wondering how many foreign languages our children will have to learn. But I do not think the children will lose anything if they learn English, French and Chinese.

    “It does not prevent them from learning our indigenous languages. All we want is a situation where our students can compete with their peers around the world. This is part of the views that education should promote global peace.”

  • Insecurity robs researchers of funding

    An Ambassador to Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AHF) in Germany, Prof Odunayo Adeboye, has said insecurity has restrained the foundation from sponsoring researchers in Nigeria.

    Adeboye disclosed this at a workshop organised by Humboldt-Kolleg themed: “Harvesting research outcomes: a practical plan to confirm achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)”, held at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Oyo State.

    He said the organisation erroneously believed that all parts of Nigeria are affected by the Boko Haram insurgency.  As a result, he said, they are reluctant to invest their money in a crisis-ridden country.

    He added that the rigorous proposal screening process and non-delivery of stewardship by Nigerians have also affected sponsorship to this part of the country.

    Apart from these, as well as the unfavourable research environment, Adeboye said Nigerians are intelligent and capable of delivering.

    The Nigerian Ambassador to the foundation said research cannot be conducted without power and other infrastructural facilities, adding that there are discoveries, but are not done to benefit people.

    In his welcome address, the convener, Prof. Simeon Olatayo, said in 2000, leaders of member countries of the United Nations adopted the millennium declaration which set out a series of clear commitment, goals and targets to achieve human development.

    He said the MDGs are designed to provide a framework for accountability, donor coordination and resource mobilisation, and provide opportunities to researchers to work on real-life development problems.

    He noted that addressing these problems require multi-disciplinary approaches that combine the natural sciences, the life sciences, technical and social-science approaches.

    “The challenge is to integrate social, economic, political and institutional concerns into research strategy,” he said.

    Olatayo further said the conference hopes to harvest different approaches to achieve MDGs and  stimulate collaboration and research interests among concerned experts such as Educationists, Sociologist, Economists,Agronomist, Agricultural Engineers, Civil Engineers, and Environmental Scientists.

    The guest lecturer, Prof. Adetanwa Odebiyi of the Sociology and Psychology Department, Lead City University, described research outcome harvesting as an evaluation approach; a participative tool enabling stakeholders to identify, formulate, verify and make sense of outcome.

    She said a major factor limiting effectiveness of academic researches is a weak bridge between researchers and policy makers adding that, the weak link is attributed to communication, priorities, and openness.

    Prof Odebiyi added that research provides information about trends and risk factors concerning a phenomenon; while a research environment affects research practices and outcome with a caveat that available resources for research in a society depends on political system.

     

  • Alumni appeal for funding

    Alumni appeal for funding

    The National President of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) Alumni Association, Babajide Bewaji, has appealed to Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola, who is also the university’s Visitor, to help the school.

    Bewaji made the appeal in a statement in Ibadan yesterday. He said kudos should be given to Aregbesola, who had showed  commitment in the education sector.

    The statement reads:” it is obvious that there is dwindling allocation of resources from the centre to the states which has stagnated the financial strength due to sharp and sudden fall in oil price in the international community.

    “Government intervention at this stage is very critical  to avoid and avert a lingering crisis among various unions on campus, which could result in making the students vulnerable and exposed to the inherent danger in the coming election where they become tools in the hands of desperate politicians.”

  • ANAN urges Fed Govt on budget funding

    ANAN urges Fed Govt on budget funding

    The President of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), Alhaji Sakirudeen Labode has urged the Federal Government to look inwards for alternative means of funding the budget now that prices of crude oil had fallen in the international market.

    Labode made the plea at the Sixth Mandatory Continuing Professional Development Programme (MCPD) of the association held in Abeokuta.

    The ANAN chief said the country could no longer rely on the price of crude oil in the international market in preparing and financing its national budget adding that the product remains unpredictable.

    He advised that all tiers of government should reduce the cost of governance by cutting down on its recurrent expenditure. “Leakages and wastages in business of government should be blocked. Our national needs should be prioritised by appropriating funds to those sectors that will grow the economy like agriculture, rods, health, education, transportation and others,’’ he said.

    Labode said ANAN was last month, admitted into full membership of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in Rome, Italy.

    He said: “The IFAC Governing Council announced the admission during her November meeting held in Rome. You will recall that ANAN was made an Associate of the World Accountancy body in December, 2012.’’

    He described the MCPD as a continuous retraining programme for members of the group aimed at enhancing their service delivery to their employers and also a key requirement of IFAC.

    “It is rotated among the six geo-political zones of the country every year, affording members the opportunity to know other parts of the country,’’ Labode said.

    According to him, the theme of this year’s MCPD is ‘Trends in Professional Practice and Regulation’’, and the sub-theme are all enriching. He said the Governing Council had given approval for the opening of Outreach Campuses of the Nigerian College of Accountancy in the six-geo political zones of the country.

  • ‘Election funding not well-regulated’

    A human rights group, the One Voice, has called for a better regulation of election funding ahead of next year’s poll.

    It said the framework to control the use of money in politics is not only weak, but makes no provision for punishing violations.

    “Both the 1999 Constitution and the Section 84 (3) of the Electoral Act 2010 made it compulsory for all political parties to submit audited reports of their election expenses three months after elections, but none of them meets this deadline,” One Voice said.

    The group, at a press conference jointly organised by the Human Rights Law Service (HURILAWS), also condemned the pre-mature political campaigns that contravene the Electoral Act’s provisions that such activities should begin 90 days before the election.

    “Virtually all elected public officials have abandoned their duty posts to embrace political campaigns, flouting the law. When overt member drives precede statutory electioneering campaign period, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should act fast to enforce the law.

    “One Voice is particularly worried about the increasing number of political rallies (by purposely established NGO’s and party loyalists). National/state funds are beign recklessly deployed to bankroll these rallies, thereby making Nigerians to suffer on the ‘good governance index’,” it said.

    The group urged INEC to shelve the use of the additional polling units which it said heated up the polity. “One Voice, therefore, is calling on INEC to discard the plan of creating 30,000 additional polling units after 2015 general elections when the dust of tensed political situation would have settled. Thereafter, INEC can seek the approval of the incoming National Assembly.

    “To go ahead to implement this plan is to further plunge the country into political turmoil, and INEC should be seen as umpire regulator and not partisan political institution,” One Voice added.alleged that the botched arms deal, as a result of which $15million was seized by South Afircan authorities, is linked to next year’s election.

    It called for vigilance by voters, saying the arms could not have been meant to fight insurgency as the budget for it had already been approved by the National Assembly, including the additional $1billion.

    One Voice believes the arms deal transaction was not done through legitimate means because the aim was to conceal it, bring in the arms secretly, and deploy them for illegitimate purposes, possibly during the election.

    The group’s Media Committee Chairman Pastor Deji Adeleye, said the deal was authorised by highly-placed persons who are powerful enough to use the government as cover when the deal went wrong.

    One Voice said because of the illicit nature of the deal, the actors jettisoned the standard mode of purchasing arms, which is a government-to-government transaction, and instead used third parties not approved by both governments.

    The transactions’ sinister aim, the group said, is reinforced by the fact the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was not involved in them and has refused to clarify the dealings.

    “South African was not convinced it was a legitimate transaction, which is why it seized the monies. Who authorised the Nigerians involved in the deal? Was it the President of the Chief of Defence Staff? We believe the government is just being used as camouflage to cover the illegal transactions. It’s only those who want to military the country during the election that are behind the importation,” the group asked.

     

     

  • ‘EFFECTIVE SPORTS POLICIES, ADEQUATE FUNDING KEY TO SPORTS’ RENAISSANCE’

    ‘EFFECTIVE SPORTS POLICIES, ADEQUATE FUNDING KEY TO SPORTS’ RENAISSANCE’

    From 15 appearances at the Olympic Games, Nigeria boasts of only three gold, eight silver and 12 bronze medals and the president of the Nigeria Taekwondo Federation (NTF), George Ashiru has described this as an inconsistent achievement pattern, which could be attributed to issues other than a lack of sporting talent.

    In his analysis of Nigerian sports in the last 54 years, the vice president of the Commonwealth Taekwondo Union (CTU) says for Nigeria to fulfill its potential in sports, effective sports policies, massive investment in grassroots development as well as adequate funding are key.

    He said: “In 54 years, we have had various agencies for national sports development, as well as several sports policies published, only to be revised or discarded for another. It stems from the fact that the overall sports vision has been hampered by not having specific national goals and preferred timescales to achieve them. When we did have some sort of goals, they were quickly discarded once there were leadership changes at the apex sports body. The policies that have been highlighted have not adequately captured the entire gamut of sports as a tool for national development, even from the cradle, and have focused more on ideals and on administrative methodology at the federal level than specifics for actualising the goals.

    He added: “National Sports Trust Fund…it is not existent again. Our National Olympic Committee (NOC) is independent only on paper. Our athletes used to get academic scholarships to study anywhere in the world after winning medals…now that is selective, dependent on the particular event and the particular government in power. In situations like these, coaches, athletes, and administrators get weary and end up under-performing.”

    In his submission, Ashiru said: “I would say that the key areas of interest which we should refocus our energy on, is the energising of the High Performance System with professional personnel, independent funding, and a purpose built high performance centre. This organ will continue its quest to find and position elite athletes for podium success. Additionally, massive investment in grassroots development working with the states and local governments to get as many as 1000 youths in each local government sign up for at least one of the various sports unique to their environment weekly.

    Continuing he said: “We need specialised funding for training of all state coaches and grassroots coaches in coaching methodology, science of sports and sports psychology. They need to be brought together in a massive wave of coach training to bring them up to international standards of coaching practice, understanding of elite athlete management, as well as high performance structures. The various federations have to again be provided appropriate subventions for administration so that none is lagging behind in providing the right kind of support for their athletes, coaches and other affiliated members.

  • Aregbesola seeks better varsity funding

    Aregbesola seeks better varsity funding

    The State of Osun Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said the proliferation of universities would not help the education system except they are well-funded.

    He spoke when the Governing Council and management of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomosho, paid him a courtesy visit in Osogbo, the state capital.

    Aregbesola said universities are called citadel of learning because they are well funded to provide knowledge and wisdom that are beneficial to the society.

    He said any university that is worth its salt must be funded enough to provide what the society needs in terms of beneficial knowledge.

    He lamented that some of the nation’s university are poorly funded and, therefore, unable to meet the academic need of the society.

    Aregbesola said funding is one of the most essential ingredient for the  growth of any university, promising that out of the meagre resources available to Osun, his government will jointly fund LAUTECH with Oyo State.

    “A university does not just answer that name unless it is able to provide for the needs of the society.

    “I fancy one great university that is all in all. A university that is well-funded to meet all the academic needs of the society it is founded to serve.

    “Most of the universities we established here are poorly funded and finance is key to the administration of any university.

    “In the case of LAUTECH, our commitment, Osun and Oyo states, is to jointly fund the institution to realise the dream of its founding fathers,” Aregbesola said.

    LAUCTH’s Vice Chancellor, Prof Adeniyi Gbadegesin, promised the management’s and staff’s cooperation with the joint owners of the institution to move the varsity forward.

    “We promise that the management and staff of the institution will continue to cooperate with both the governments of Osun and Oyo to move our institution and states forward,” Gbadegesin said.

  • BUK’s VC decries poor funding

    BUK’s VC decries poor funding

    Vice Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano (BUK) Prof. Abubakar Adamu Rasheed has said poor funding, over-crowding and decayed facilities are the most disturbing issues in the public university system.

    Prof Rasheed spoke at the weekend at the foundation-laying ceremony of the senate building complex of the Jigawa State University in Kafin Hausa.

    He said the over-crowding is as a result of shortage of facilities and poor funding.

    Professor Rasheed, who chaired the occasion, said of 129 universities in Nigeria, 39 were owned by states and 50 by private individuals.

    This, he said, “is inadequate owing to over-crowding in the public universities”.

    The vice chancellor said the establishment of more private or public universities is desirable to discourage over-crowding in the public university system.

    He said the country wastes so much resource on trivial issues and spends little on the education sector.

    “It pays to invest on education, as it is the tested tool for economic development. Jigawa has taken a step in its future”.

    Education Commissioner Prof. Haruna Wakili said the university would take off with three faculties, nine departments and 15 programmes.