Janet Samuel
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) have signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at enhancing transparency and improving remittances from the extractive industries to the education fund.
The agreement, formalised at a ceremony in Abuja, is designed to ensure timely and accurate data sharing between both agencies, particularly on revenues accruing from oil, gas, mining, and other extractive-related companies operating in Nigeria.
TETFund Executive Secretary, Arc. Sonny Echono said the partnership is a critical step in aligning the Fund’s revenue tracking system with the broader fiscal accountability agenda of the Tinubu administration. He noted that the deal would help recover unpaid education taxes and ensure companies make their full remittances.
He disclosed that TETFund had established a dedicated Department of Revenue and Investment, which has significantly enhanced revenue collection across its zonal offices in collaboration with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
“We now have officers working hand-in-hand with FIRS to track tax-paying companies and verify compliance. This has led to significant improvements in remittance, though challenges remain, especially with offshore entities,” Echono noted.
The partnership comes on the heels of ongoing tax reforms, which will see the education tax transformed into a development levy. However, TETFund will continue to receive 50 percent of the levy, with the MoU serving as the framework for tracking and accountability.
On his part, NEITI Executive Secretary, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, described the MoU as timely and strategic, stressing that it will enable both institutions to better monitor resource inflows and promote more efficient utilisation of revenues in the education sector.
According to NEITI’s latest audit data, TETFund accrued approximately ₦1.024 trillion in revenue from education tax between 2019 and 2023. This includes ₦322.99 billion in 2022 and ₦571.01 billion in 2023 alone—the highest on record.
Dr. Orji stated that most of the funds were generated from profits declared by companies in oil, gas, manufacturing, banking, telecommunications, and mining, which fall under NEITI’s audit scope.
Also speaking, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Abel Olumuyiwa Enitan, commended the move as a welcome development that would strengthen financial inflows into the education sector and support long-term national growth through human capital development.
The MoU is expected to pave the way for real-time data access, improved compliance monitoring, and enhanced research and scholarship funding for public tertiary institutions across the country.
