Dr Abdullahi Baffa, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, has said one of its challenges was getting access to the online payment portal that records companies who remit the mandatory education tax.
Baffa said this during an oversight visit by the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund in Abuja on Wednesday.
He said that TETFund got its funds from the mandatory 2 per cent education tax paid by companies in Nigeria which was collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
“We have a department responsible for liaising with FIRS to ensure this tax is collected from all the companies that are supposed to be paying.
“We want to do this real time, since there is a portal we want to have access to the portal. So whenever a company pays we know and we see.
“So we can do reconciliation more seamlessly; we need to have access to the portal. So our planning process will be better.”
The Executive Secretary said that another challenge of the fund was the failure of many companies to remit the mandatory two per cent tax through the FIRS.
According to him, not up to 50 per cent of the companies that are supposed to pay tax are paying.
“There are still so many companies operating in Nigeria that are not remitting their education tax.
“The revenue is dwindling because the bulk of the tax is coming from oil companies and oil related businesses and the cost of oil we are aware globally, has been going down.”
He added that getting the tax arrears from companies who had defaulted was another issue the fund was faced with.
Baffa called on the committee to assist the fund to develop a software to enhance tax monitoring.
He said a total of N156.3 billion had been allocated by the fund for the ongoing special intervention projects to universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
The executive secretary added that only N152 billion had been disbursed to the tertiary institutions.
The Chairman of the committee, Sen. Jibrin Barau, assured the fund of the senate’s continuous support and promised to address some of the challenges mentioned.
“We are committed to giving you the necessary support to succeed. We are here to work together so that we can mover our education sector forward. We would report on what was discussed and see how best to address these issues.” (NAN)