The acting executive secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Mr. Chris J. Maiyaki, has appealed to the Senate and House Joint Committee on Tertiary Education and TETFund for improved budget allocation to the Commission.
This, according to him, is in view of the expansion in the number of universities it presently regulates in order to improve its capacity to assure quality in the Nigerian University System (NUS).
Maiyaki made the appeal during the defence of the 2024 budget estimates of NUC alongside that of all Federal Universities.
He stated that NUC needed the improved funding to discharge its core mandate of quality assurance of the Nigerian universities with 270 under its purview.
It would be recalled that to simplify the budget defence process for Federal Universities, the Joint Committee allowed the regulator, NUC, to present the budget on behalf of universities while the Vice-Chancellors carry out the perfunctory roles of listening.
“We had at different fora with the leadership of the National Assembly made a case for this special attention to be paid to the NUC as regards improved allocation for Quality assurance activities with the increase of universities to 270 today from merely 13 during the 1970’s, thus increasing the role of the Commission and justifying this dire need.
“We desire that the envelope system should be done away with and tackled. Nigerian universities don’t just want to exist, but function effectively with the full complement of support from the National Assembly.”
The Acting Executive Secretary also spoke on the impact of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) on the universities, which had remained in the front burner among the agitations of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
He pointed out that the issue of the IPPIS had continued to be a bottleneck to the smooth functioning of Nigerian universities, describing it as an anomaly for Vice-Chancellors to be running to the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) for recruitment of academic staff in the universities which had led to shortage of staff in the system over the years, due to embargo placement on employment from the Head of Service.
He added: “I know for new universities there is the need now to get them on board. For other Vice- Chancellors, budget is a normal ritual. I know they have all made provisions for some few additional staff to cope with new courses, promotions and other issues.
Maiyaki further expressed the gratitude of the universities to the legislators on improved overhead provisions, but said the university Vice-Chancellors wanted him to remind the distinguished Senators and Honourable members of the serious problem they were facing with the envelope system, especially with the pronouncement of the federal government to deduct 40 per cent of the Internally-generated Revenue (IGR), when they were yet crying for lack of funding of the system.
He, however, commended the role of the National Assembly to the government’s rescinding of the decision.
The NUC boss noted that the budget was in three phases, comprising personnel cost, recurrent expenditure as well as capital budget, stressing that the budget presentation was an annual ritual which the older universities were familiar with.
He said universities were going through several challenges and the Budget defence was a good avenue to discuss them before the joint committee. “Distinguished Senators and Honourable members, we have made a sincere budget presentation that covers the individual university’s area of needs.
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