The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Port Harcourt Zone, has vehemently condemned the proposed Nigeria Tax Bill (NTB) 2024, particularly Section 59(3), which it describes as a “death sentence” for public tertiary education in Nigeria.
According to ASUU, the proposed bill, if passed into law, would have far-reaching and devastating consequences for the already beleaguered public tertiary education sector in Nigeria.
Section 59(3) of the proposed NTB 2024 sought to impose a tax on the salaries of academic staff in public universities, which ASUU argues would further erode the meagre benefits and allowances of its members.
The union views this provision as a deliberate attempt to strangulate public universities and push them further into financial crisis.
ASUU argued that the proposed tax would not only affect the take-home pay of its members but also undermine the union’s struggle for better funding of public universities.
Speaking during a media briefing themed “The Nigeria Tax Bill, 2024, and the Proposed Scrapping of TETFund: A Death Sentence for Public Tertiary Educational Institutions,” ASUU’s Zonal Coordinator, Stanley Ogoun, criticized the planned diversion of TETFund resources to finance the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), calling it an illegal and unsustainable decision.
Ogoun stated that the federal government’s introduction of the students’ loan scheme and its reliance on the TETFund for financing demonstrates a lack of foresight and innovative thinking. He argued that successive governments have systematically undermined public education, and this administration’s actions further exacerbate the challenges facing tertiary institutions.
“The systemic and repeated efforts by successive governments to emasculate and decimate public educational institutions have continued unabated,” Ogoun said. This administration has taken a further step in this anti-people and retrogressive affront on public tertiary education, via not only the introduction of the so-called students’ loan scheme but also the planned abrogation of TETFund as an intervention agency by 2030.”
Ogoun highlighted that the government had no sustainable funding plan for NELFUND, questioning the source of its take-off funds and the future sustainability of the loan scheme. He accused government advisers of misleading President Tinubu into approving the use of TETFund allocations for NELFUND without adhering to the laws governing the fund.
“The planners of the scheme could not come up with an appropriate and innovative funding source. Bereft of innovative thinking, these handlers simply advised Mr President to draw from funds meant for TETFund to commence the scheme. This illegality has now paved the way for the proposed Section 59(3) of the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, which reduces TETFund’s intervention scope. It is informative to state from the onset that the current government had no
sustainable plans for the funding of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND). This was one of the core questions raised by our Union and all well-meaning
Nigerians: Where will the funds come from and how will the loan scheme be?
Sustained from commencement to when eventually refunds will begin to trickle in
from those graduates who become gainfully employed or become revenue earners from self-employment?”
Ogoun added that the proposed Section 59(3) would allocate only 50 per cent of development levies to TETFund between 2025 and 2026 while diverting the rest to NITDA, NASENI, and NELFUND. By 2030, TETFund would receive zero allocations.
He appealed to the National Assembly to reject the controversial section: “We call on members of the current National Assembly to pick sides with the people for once and shoot down Section 59(3) of the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024 in the interest of all public tertiary institutions that are not located in industrialized cities. We resist the hostile takeover of TETFund accruals for a student loan scheme Let posterity be the judge of your action today.”
