Senate Tackles UniAbuja Over Non-Remittance Of N603m To Federation Account

The University of Abuja seems to be in trouble over alleged mismanagement of N603 million from N2.4 billion generated internally.

The Auditor-General of the Federation had raised concern in 2017 report over alleged mismanagement of N603 million out of N2.4 billion generated internally by the institution.

The Senate Public Accounts Committee(SPAC) has, however, sustained the query of the Auditor- General of the Federation against the University of Abuja over alleged mismanagement of N603 million from N2.4 billion generated internally.

However, the Vice-Chancellor of UniAbuja, AbdulRasheed Na’Allah, while responding before Senator Matthew Uroghide led panel, claimed that the money generated internally was not enough to run the affairs of the institution, adding that they were forced to spend N603 million that was meant to be remitted to the federation account. Na’Allah said: “Peculiarity of the universities in Nigeria is clear and does not have enough IGR to remit to the consolidated revenue fund as adduced by the auditor-general. “The universities collect only third party revenues from students. “Revenue collected are for specific purpose such as union dues, ID card, medical fees, laboratory fees usually refers to other charges.

“Cost recovery concept is adopted by the university. “For instance, ID card charges were used to process ID cards for students.

These revenues are not enough for the purpose collected and therefore the capacity for the university to remit surplus is lacking.”

But Senator Urhoghide represented by the Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ibrahim Hadejia, demanded for the refund of N603 million to the CRF.