The head of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, is in the custody of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) due to suspected irregularities in awarding ICT projects valued at N7.6 billion.
Demola Bakare, an ICPC spokesperson, said Echono was taken in for questioning on Thursday and is still being held as the investigation progresses.
This event follows an April 18 media report indicating that TETFund awarded two contracts worth N3.8 billion each to Fides Et Ratio Academy and Pole Global Marketing (PGM) within two months. These contracts lacked approval from the Federal Executive Council (FEC), which is required for contracts of this magnitude.
The contracts were for providing capacity-building courses and learning management systems to around 2 million students at various higher education institutions across the country.
TETFund, in response to the report, explained that these were not contracts but ICT projects carried out under a memorandum of understanding (MoU), which doesn’t require competitive public procurement processes.
TETFund also stated that its funding guidelines had received presidential approval based on the recommendations of its Board of Trustees and with the Minister of Education’s agreement, all according to the TETFund Act 2011.
Despite Sonny Echono’s insistence in an interview with TheCable that the N7.6 billion project had no irregularities, his detention by the ICPC indicates that the agency is thoroughly investigating the case to determine if any misdeeds occurred in the project’s award and implementation.
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