Territory Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) has admitted that the institution violated financial Audit regulations for the years 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
The Executive Secretary of the institution, Sonny Echono made this admission on Friday during the hearing of the House of Representatives Public Accounts Committee chaired by Representative Bamidele Salam.
The Committee, referencing reports from the Office of the Accountant General and the Auditor General of the Federation, questioned TETFUND’s compliance with financial regulations and parliamentary acts concerning the submission of audited accounts.
In response, TETFUND’s Executive Secretary, Sonny, defended the institution and asserted its commitment to responsibility in managing public resources.
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“I may bold to say Tetfund is a very responsible public institution and we are acutely aware of our obligation on the need for reporting and accounting for resources at our disposal, I shall be presenting to you, I assumed office in March of 2022 but I can assure you that this tradition has remained in tetfund from inception in 2011 till date and that is why I am in a position to confirm to this Honorable Committee that we are up to date.
“I have letters here that I will be presenting to you, evidence and acknowledgment of our submission of the Audited report, and also have additional copies for members that we have evidence from both the office accountant General of the federation as well as the office of the Auditor General of the federation confirming that we made submission of our financial statements for 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 and this evidence are here and I will be presenting them to you, strictly acknowledged by the respective offices, thank you very well” he explained.
Sonny presented evidence of the submission of audited reports for the specified years and emphasized the longstanding tradition of accountability within TETFUND.
According to the Chairman, “By law when are you supposed to render this account and submit them, Es what I am saying is that the 2019 Audited account was supposed to have been submitted by when by factual of fiscal responsibility act? if you are supposed to submit something in May/June of 2020 and you submitted it on the 24th of December, will it be right to say you have complied”
In response to the Chairman’s question, The Executive Secretary said, “I believe it should be June of the following year or May/June of the year following the expiration of the accounting period)
“Our accounting year ends from January to December but you also know that at times for various reasons, just like in the public sector when budgets are extended, there are certain activities that do not end at the 31st of December as planned. Even the reporting to us, for example, our revenues for the previous years we don’t normally get the actual confirmation of those of 31st of December on that day, it has to come into the following year, so the period it takes the accounting firms to prepare the document to visit all our institutions across the country to validate some of the submission, sometimes it takes more than 2 or 3 months that other account would have taken to enable us to comply with the May/June deadline which is 5 months after a close of the period.
The Chairman corrected the Executive Secretary over the deadline for submission of Audited accounts, “The deadline for your information is the end of March according to the provision of the act, the May/June that you are referring to is regulations like a circular but the circular can’t override the provide of an act of parliament.
However, the Committee Chairman challenged TETFUND’s adherence to legal deadlines, citing the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s requirement for submission by the end of March.
Despite TETFUND’s reference to extended accounting periods and logistical challenges, the Chairman maintained the primacy of legislative provisions over regulatory guidelines.
Acknowledging past regulations, TETFUND admitted that the institution had defaulted the provisions of the act on the deadline for the submission of Audited statements of account.
The Committee unanimously pledged to communicate the parliament decision and the sanctions by the law to the institution on the matter promptly.
