The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has announced that beneficiary institutions with unresolved delayed projects will not be eligible to commence new projects under the 2027 intervention cycle.
Abdulmumin Oniyangi, Director, Public Affairs, TETFund stated this in a Statement made available to Tv360 on Wednesday, July 29, 2026.
According to the Statement, the decision, aimed at addressing the persistent problem of abandoned and delayed TETFund-sponsored projects, was disclosed by the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Rt. Hon. Aminu Bello Masari.
Masari said the Board had become increasingly concerned about the continued failure of some beneficiary institutions to complete projects within approved timelines despite interventions introduced to address the challenge.
He noted that delays had been attributed to factors including fluctuations in the prices of major construction materials such as cement, reinforcement bars, sanitary wares and electrical fittings. To cushion the impact of rising costs, the Board introduced a special intervention line in 2023 dedicated to the completion of stalled projects.
According to him, the initiative had produced positive results, with many previously delayed projects now completed.
However, he expressed dissatisfaction that delays had persisted in some institutions, blaming the situation largely on the lack of continuity in project implementation by successive heads of institutions, who often abandoned ongoing projects in favour of new ones, as well as delays in processing payments to contractors.
“The Board will not allow TETFund-sponsored projects to be negatively impacted by internal bureaucracy and politics within beneficiary institutions,” Masari said.
To address the recurring challenge, the BoT approved a number of immediate measures.
The Board directed all beneficiary institutions to compile comprehensive lists of projects that have exceeded their planned completion periods by more than six months, indicating the reasons for the delays and proposed remedies.
Institutions are also required to rank the affected projects according to priority and relevance while providing detailed cost estimates for their completion.
In addition, beneficiary institutions have been instructed to establish robust project supervision teams, with the active involvement of their Physical Planning and Maintenance Departments, to ensure projects are completed on schedule, within approved costs and in line with required quality standards.
The Board further directed institutions with delayed projects to prioritise their completion under the Annual, Zonal and High Impact Intervention lines.
Consequently, no new projects will be approved for affected institutions in the 2027 intervention cycle until the delayed projects are completed.
As part of the implementation process, monitoring teams comprising members of the Board of Trustees and technical staff of the Fund will conduct on-the-spot assessments of affected projects and review completion plans submitted by beneficiary institutions.
The assessments are scheduled to take place between August and September 2026 ahead of the Board’s statutory meeting in October, where projects to be admitted into the 2027 disbursement guidelines will be considered.
