TETFund Promises to Assist Universities with High Electricity Bills

The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, has said that the agency will this year intervene to ameliorate the high energy cost that is almost crippling teaching and learning in tertiary institutions across the country.

He stated that the intervention is to complement the federal government’s efforts, which is planning to install solar energy panels in some higher institutions.

Some public universities like the University of Lagos, University of Ibadan and Ahmadu Bello University, because of being categorized as Band A users by electricity distribution companies, are each slammed with monthly bills in excess of N300 million.

Echono stated this in Lagos at the weekend when TETFund won the New Telegraph Newspaper’s award as the Most Improved Government Agency in 2024.

“The award is dedicated to Mr President and the minister of education who have been pushing us to ensure judicious use of allocated resources and to also ensure that our beneficiary institutions use resources allocated to them judiciously too,” said Echono.

The TETFund boss noted that 2025 would be the agency’s “brightest year of intervention,” with plans to tailor interventions to the needs of beneficiary institutions like power by providing solar panels.

The TETFund chief also disclosed that the agency will improve the teaching and learning conditions, including lecturers’ research capacity and the hostel. 

“We will ensure that our research centres are excellent in nature and that we won’t need to send research samples abroad again,” said Echono. “We will continue efforts to improve the capacities of our institutions to become centres of excellence, thereby improving their global rankings and making our students globally competitive.”

Echono also reiterated that TETFund is not overburdened by the government’s constant establishment of higher institutions, as it is mandatory to cater to such institutions.

“The more the merrier,” stated Echono. “We have a high rate of population growth and a high demand for higher education. In a situation where over two million candidates seek admission to tertiary institutions yearly and between 600,000 and 700,000 are admitted, we still need more higher institutions.”

He added, “People are paying their taxes, and we have increase in our resources. Since we are judiciously using available resources, we are on course. We welcome new challenges, and we are ready to fulfil our mandate.”