The House of Representatives has debunked the claim that the committee of the House extorts money from the vice chancellors of universities, News About Nigeria reports.
This was contained in a statement issued by the spokesperson of the House of Representatives, Rotimi Akin, claiming that the narrative was false.
He noted that the constitution already stated that no money shall be withdrawn from any public fund of the Federation other than the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation unless the issue of those monies has been authorised by an Act of the National Assembly, as quoted by Section 80(3) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended.
Akin maintained that the narrative that lawmakers intend to extort administrators of higher institutions remains false and unfounded.
He added that legislative oversight or directives over money appropriated by parliament for a public institution neither constitutes “unwholesome overbearing influence” in the management of the schools nor “breaches their autonomy” as argued by both VCs and provosts of higher institutions.
He further noted that the National Assembly has been given the power to investigate the conduct of affairs of any person, authority, ministry, or government department charged, or intended to be charged, with the responsibility of disbursing money appropriated by the Assembly.
He stated that no official complaint has been made by the tertiary institutions and urged the people to therefore disregard the rumours.
“Since we have not received any such complaints, we believe the false narratives being peddled are not the positions of the tertiary institutions’ administrators, but a few among them who have a lot to fear and consequently seek to hide, and have jettisoned formal channels and opted for coordinated sponsored smear campaigns against the Committee,” he said.
Recall that some vice chancellors had accused the committee on TETFund of extorting money from them in the name of oversight.
