ASUU Rejects Tax Reform Bill, Says It's a Death Knell For TETFund, Kill Public Education

 

         Igbafen (m) flanked by ASUU officials at the               press briefing 

Hendrix Oliomogbe 

The Benin Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities has joined the ranks of those kicking against the controversial Tax Bill by the federal government, saying it is out to destroy public institutions in the country.

Speaking with journalists Friday in Benin, the Zonal Coordinator, ASUU Benin Zone, Prof. Monday Lewis Igbafen, said the planned gradual facing out of TETFund in the proposed bill is out to kill public education in the country.

President Bola Tinubu had however vowed during a media chat in December last year in Lagos that his administration will not back down on the new tax reforms bill before the National Assembly as Nigeria "can't continue in the old ways." 

Prof. Igbafen countered, saying that the union is alarmed by Section 59(3) of the Tax Bill  which states that only 50 percent  of the Development Levy would be made available to Tertiary Education Fund (TETFund) in 2025 while NITDA, NISENI and NELFUND would share the remaining percentages.

He said: "The consequence of this Section is that TETFund will receive 66 percent in 2027, 2028 and 2029 years of assessment and zero percent thereafter, especially from 2030."

Prof. Igbafen noted that education is a public good and as a result, government must not be allowed to destroy Nigerian tertiary education, adding that the government is out to destroy education through the tax bill.

As a union of intellectuals, the zonal coordinator reiterated the vehement rejection of the tax reform bill, especially  its attempt to erode the concrete relevance of TETFund to the infrastructural development, postgraduate training and research capacity building in Nigeria's public tertiary institutions.

Prof. Igbafen justified the establishment of TETFund, stressing that it is relevant in the transformation of tertiary institutions in the country. 

He said: "Since its formation, it has remained the cornerstone of rapid transformation of tertiary institutions in terms of manpower, infrastructural and academic development.

"While the Nigerians are in the wilderness over the recalcitrance of government to resolve the unresolved issues arising from the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, our Union, ASUU, is worried by the inclusion of the "death" of TETFund, effective from 2030 in tax reform bill that has become an albatross to the Tinubu government"

"We are calling for mass resistance against this potent threat to the life-wire of tertiary education in our country because the impeding abrogation of TETFund will take public tertiary education many years back and undermine the modest gains in re-positioníng Nigerian universities for global reckoning and transformative development."

The unionist lamented that in the past few years, Nigeria has continued to oscillate between five percent and seven with President Tinubu retaining seven percent budgetary allocation to education in its 2025 Budget, instead of the 26 percent benchmark of budgetary allocation to education prescribed by the United Nations.