The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu has received the report of the 7-man panel inaugurated on May 2 to audit the utilisation of the take-off grants to the 12 new federal universities.
A statement by the Federal Ministry of Education on Monday in Abuja, said that the 12 new universities were established by the previous administration.
The statement was signed by Dr Priscilla Ihuoma, the Director of Press and Public Relations in the ministry.
“Adamu commended the members of the panel for their dedication and diligence in completing the task within the short period.
“The minister said that the issues of students’ accommodation and accreditation of courses would be looked into quickly to ensure that the institutions were repositioned.
“He added that the report would be studied and the recommendations implemented.’’
Ihuoma said that the Chairman of the Audit Panel, Professor Olufemi Bamiro, had earlier in his speech briefed the minister on the modus operandi the panel adopted, noting that the report was in two parts- main report and individual institution’s report.
She quoted Bamiro as saying that, at the time of the audit exercise, the 12 universities had a total students’ enrolment of 40,614 and academic staff strength of 3,756, with only about 32 per cent of the lecturers having Ph.D. degrees.
“On the contracts awarded, Prof. Bamiro said that the panel observed that extant guidelines by the Public Procurement Act (PPA) were followed in most cases, while there were also a few cases of deviations,’’ she quoted Bamiro as saying.
The director said that Bamiro thanked Adamu for the opportunity given to the members of the panel to serve their fatherland, and urged him to look critically into the specific observations and recommendations in the Reports.
