The Honourable Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu has received the Report of the seven-man Audit Panel inaugurated on May 2, 2017, to audit the utilization of the take-off grants in the 12 New Universities established by the previous administration.
Speaking while receiving the report in his office on Monday, November 20, 2017, MallamAdamu 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 programmes will be looked into quickly to ensure that the institutions are repositioned on the right pedestal adding that the Report will be studied and the recommendations implemented.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the Audit Panel, Prof. Olufemi Bamiro, 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.
He said 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% of the lecturers having Ph.D degrees.
On the contracts awarded Prof. Bamiro stated 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.
He thanked the Minister 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 Report.