The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, is proposing stiffer penalties for erring tax payers in the country.
This comes on a day the House Committee Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND, summoned some commercial banks over alleged under remittance of Education Tax to the Fund.
Underfunding is still the major problem slowing down the growth and development of tertiary institutions’ and a source of acrimony between unions and the authorities.
Since 1999, Nigeria has had no less than 15 Semesters, which is 66 months, of academic interruption due to issues relating to finance between workers and the government.
In 2022, Universities were grounded following industrial actions between February and August.
Government’s efforts at addressing the funding gap led to the creation of TETFUND in 2011.
Registered companies in Nigeria are to pay 2 per cent education tax from their accessible profit and it is collected by the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
In the last 13 years, the fund has not been able to perform optimally due to an alleged failure of commercial banks to play their role as outlined.
This is the hurdle before the Committee on TETFUND.
ASUU has always complained about deteriorating infrastructure in the universities and unmet demands relating to welfare
It insists tax defaulters should be held accountable.
The union also calls for an end to the waiver for funding tertiary institutions
7 of the 15 banks being investigated were expected to show up here, but only 3 had representatives
A representative of First Bank, Bashir Yusuf, told the lawmakers that between 2011 and 2022, the Bank posted a Profit Before Tax of N795,123 billion.
But the committee identified some discrepancies in the figures.
The noticeable discrepancies in the figures forced the committee to summon the Chief executives of all banks earlier invited.
The Banks to appear before the committee on the 20th of June include, Zenith Bank , Access Bank , First Bank, United Bank for Africa, Sterling Bank , Keystone Bank , FBN Quest Merchant Bank , First Bank, Guarantee Trust Bank , Stanbic Bank , Wema Bank , Eco Bank, Fidelity Bank , Jaiz Bank and Unity Bank.
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