Posted by Chinenye on Thu 30th Jul, 2026 - tori.ng
TETFund has introduced stricter measures against tertiary institutions with delayed projects, warning that some schools could miss out on future interventions.
( (TETFund Project. Photo by Vanguard News)
Beneficiary tertiary institutions who have neglected to finish intervention projects have been hit hard by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
Additionally, it declared that during the 2027 intervention cycle, institutions having unfinished or delayed projects would not be eligible for new project approvals.
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund has adopted a tougher stance against project delays in tertiary institutions, warning that no fresh projects will be approved for any institution with outstanding uncompleted ones.
The tough stance was adopted by the Fund's Board of Trustees as part of sweeping measures aimed at ending years of project delays, cost overruns and poor implementation that have undermined the impact of its interventions across Nigeria's tertiary institutions.
The Fund's Director of Public Affairs, Abdulmumin Oniyangi, disclosed this in a statement, quoting the Chairman of the Board, Aminu Bello Masari, as saying the era of allowing institutions to pile up fresh projects while existing ones remained uncompleted was over.
Masari said the Board would no longer tolerate avoidable delays, though he acknowledged that some stalled projects had initially been affected by soaring prices of construction materials, including cement, reinforcement bars, and sanitary and electrical fittings.
He recalled that the Board had introduced a special intervention line in 2023 to address such projects, noting that the initiative recorded significant success, with many previously abandoned projects completed following additional funding.
Despite this, he lamented that delays had continued in several institutions, attributing the trend largely to a lack of continuity among successive heads of institutions who abandoned inherited projects in favour of new ones, as well as bureaucratic bottlenecks that slow down payments to contractors.
He warned that internal politics and administrative red tape within beneficiary institutions would no longer be allowed to frustrate projects financed with public funds.
To permanently address the challenge, the Board approved a series of immediate measures.
Under the new directives, every beneficiary institution must compile a comprehensive inventory of all projects that have remained uncompleted for more than six months beyond their scheduled completion dates, clearly stating the reasons for the delays and proposing practical solutions.
Institutions are also required to rank the projects by priority and relevance while providing detailed cost estimates needed for their completion.
In addition, each institution is to establish a robust project supervision mechanism involving its physical planning and maintenance departments to ensure projects are delivered on schedule, within approved costs, and according to required quality standards.
Most significantly, institutions with delayed projects will now be required to channel their annual, zonal and high-impact intervention allocations towards completing those projects before seeking approval for any new ones.
With the Board declaring that no fresh projects would be admitted for any institution identified as having outstanding delayed projects during the 2027 intervention cycle.
To ensure compliance, TETFund disclosed that monitoring teams made up of Board members and the Fund's technical officials would carry out nationwide inspections of affected projects between August and September 2026.
The inspections, the Fund said, would assess the status of the projects and evaluate completion plans submitted by beneficiary institutions ahead of the Board's statutory meeting in October 2026, where projects to be included in the 2027 disbursement guidelines would be considered.