Don’t sign TETFund bill, group tells President

The organization warned that presidential assent to the bill would dilute the functions of TETFund and drag his government into an unprecedented and unwanted industrial crisis.

The group described the bill as “a self interested proposition” by a former chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Legal Matters, Ali Ahmed.

The Executive Director of ISDMG, Dr. Chima Amadi, and Director, Babatunde Oluajo, at a press briefing in Abuja, wondered how the NLS, an institution for the licensing of lawyers in Nigeria which is owned by the Council of Legal Education, can be a beneficiary of the TETFund.

Amadi said, “TETFund is supposed to be an interventionist agency but amending the law and making it universal is going to dilute its function while its impact may not be felt. Several organizations and state governments will come up and will over-burden the agency and the impact will be very minimal.

“We will embark on cost-effective means to stop the passage of the bill into a law. Assenting to the bill will be sending us 10 years backwards. We appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari not to assent to this bill for the simple reason that it is not only counterproductive, but will drag this government into an unwanted industrial crisis.

“The fact that the bill was rejected in 2012 by all stakeholders and unions is a pointer to its non-acceptability by these unions and civil society organizations.

“The most bewildering aspect of the amendment is the explanatory memorandum. Once this is allowed to stand, it will take us back to the old Education Trust Fund era which was restructured owing to the limitation brought on her activities as a result of interventions in too many institutions.

“This law will bring about the proliferation of institutions which will negate the change from ETF to TETFund and that change, being a discussion at the Federal Executive Council under President Yar’Adua which proposed that an Executive Bill be sent to the National Assembly, which was passed and then sent to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for his assent.

The ISDMG reminded Buhari that as the head of the Petroleum Trust Fund, the danger of allowing PTF to intervene in every activity of the government only whittled down the impact of the intervention.

The group queried if the legislators have paused to reflect on the wider implication of allowing the amendment to stand, especially in the face of several other institutes that regulate and license professionals, such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria, the National Teachers Institute, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.

“This may just be the opening of the flood gate since they are all established by law. Let us state here that the TETFund has supported the training of lawyers through wholesale construction of faculties of law, equipment of law libraries, moot-courts and training of law lecturers.”