CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of The Study
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) was founded under the Education Tax Act No. 7 of 1993 as an intervention agency. However the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (Establishment, Etc.) Act, 2011 was used to replace the Education Tax Act Cap. E4, laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004and Education Tax Fund Act No. 17, 2003 which consequently led to the establishment of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund vested with the obligation of disbursing, managing and monitoring the education tax to public tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Consequently to facilitate the attainment of the stated objective of TETFUND, the TETFund Act, 2011 subjects a 2 percent (2%) Education Tax on all declared profit of registered companies in Nigeria. Consequently the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was vested with the responsibility by the Act to collect Education TAX. Journal of Sustainable Development (2014). The fund is then disbursed to tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria.
TETFUND also evaluates and monitors the projects implemented by beneficiary institutions. The disbursement of the fund is mandated as provided in section 7 (1) (a) to (e) of the TETFund Act, 2011 which stipulates that TETFUND shall administer and disburse the amount in the fund to Federal and State tertiary educational institutions. The fund so disbursed is for the provision and maintenance of physical infrastructure; Academic Staff Training and Development, Research and publication; Instructional material and equipment; and other critical area of need which is considered by the opinion of the Board of Trustees as significant for the improvement and sustenance of educational standard in tertiary institution. (tetfund.gov.ng, 2014). This therefore imply that the cardinal objective of TETFUND was to provide additional funding to facilitate scholarship and grants to meet the educational need of tertiary institutions in Nigeria as well as ensure that those resources improves the productivity and quality of tertiary Education.
The research therefore seek to investigate the impact of TETFUND In the provision of infrastructure in Gombe state university.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The recent wave of security challenges in northern Nigeria poses great question as to the state of educational infrastructure and as well as the ability of TETFUND to carry out its constitutional role of implementing intervention projects in tertiary institutions in gombe state. It has also been noted that the process of accessing funds from TETFund is quite complicated thereby leading to delayed approval of funds for intervention projects. Also Section 7 (1) of the TETFund (Establishment, ETC) Act of 2011 provides for the disbursement of funds for projects outside the provision of infrastructure, instructional materials, research, publication, and academic staff training but its vested at the discretion of the board of trustees which makes it rather difficult and sometimes impossible.
Other challenges faced by tertiary institutions lies with the maintenance of infrastructure which is given little attention by TETFUND. TETFund focuses more on the provision at the expense of given attention to the “maintenance. Of those facility. Consequently many projects which require TETFUND maintenance intervention are being neglected in many tertiary institutions. Revelations are that this is actually the real state of many of the physical infrastructure funded by TETFund in many institutions. Consequently the problem confronting the research is to appraise The impact of tetfund in the provision of infrastructure in gombe state university.