How we recovered stolen N100m TETFund projects grant from our staff

by Adeyemo Adeolu

Management of the Osun State college Of Education, Ila-Orangun has revealed that the institution has recovered a sum of N100 million Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) fund meant to execute certain projects but stolen by some college staff.

The college bursar, Dr. Olanrewaju Oyedeji who dropped this hint at an interactive session in his office on Friday, explained that the stolen fund had affected construction of the 2013 Amphitheater project valued about N400 million in the school saying this had also forced TETFUND to blacklist the campus on many further benefits that could come to the school.

He emphasized, “the school was blacklisted by TETFund over the failure of an Amphitheatre project sited in the school despite the fact that about N400 million was invested in it, out of the money given out by the agency to fund the project.

Dr. Oyedeji however remarked that cleaning the system was not without resistance from those benefiting in the anomaly but the prompt support of the management made it possible to rid the system of corruption.

“When I resumed office, I went through the papers and discovered that certain individuals decided to pocket the monies meant to execute the project, hence, the agency blacklisted the school from benefiting from its fund.”

“We then put mechanism in place, we invited everyone involved, we talked to them amicably but it was not yielding result, hence, we invited the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) to intervene. Months after we started recovering money.

“Salaries of some workers were deducted on a monthly basis, some returned wholesome amount while others are facing prosecution before Federal High Court over the matter. On the whole, we were able to recover about N100 million.

“We then write Tetfund that we want to invest the money into the failed project and we were given approval. After that we went back to the agency renew our relationship and we were put back on their good books.

“Today, several Tetfund projects have been completed within the school. The agency specifically requested that the school remove some individuals from handling their project which we did and to the glory of God, the school has been benefiting from transparency and efficient project monitoring which we introduced”, he submitted.