From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The National Universities Commission (NUC), yesterday said full autonomy being clamored for by universities was still far from realization because of the obvious ineptitude in the management of school resources.
Government centered its argument on the obvious violation of financial regulations and other profligacy, which the Commission and the government had noticed.
NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Rasheed Abubakar, who divulged the information at a meeting with bursars of the federal universities in Abuja, alleged that some university bursars approved over N5 million annually as furniture allowance for their VCs.
He added: “This was aside the ones approved for chairman and members of the council for similar or other purposes. Also, there are lots of secrecy surrounding the Duty Tour Allowance (DTA) being paid to VCs by their bursars, and this could be the reason the VCs and bursars are always the first target each time the school is linked to corruption case.”
He disclosed that NUC might be forced to write the vice chancellors and update the bursars with the right knowledge and approach on issues that concerned DTA, furniture allowance and other expenditures, which he said became conduit pipe through which the school resources were siphoned.
He reminded the bursars that the essence of the meeting was to provide a platform for them for freely interact and share experience, knowledge and skills, and possibly proffer solutions to identified problems.
Abubakar appealed to them to always apply caution in handling school resources and strictly follow rules and regulations to avoid sanctions from anti-graft agencies.