Fashola Probes Lagos Tertiary Schools

Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, South West Nigeria, has constituted a 9-man committee to probe the financial accounts of tertiary institutions in the state.

The governor met with members of the governing councils of tertiary institutions in the state on Monday in his office to find ways to reposition tertiary education.

The probe might not be unconnected with allegations of financial mismanagement that rocked the Lagos State University, LASU, in recent times which necessitated the setting up of  a panel of enquiry to look into the crisis in the institution.

Tertiary institutions owned by Lagos State Government that would be probed are LASU, Lagos State Polytechnic, LASPOTECH, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, AOCOED and the Lagos State College of Primary Education.

The governor told the governing councils of these institutions that the commitment he made on behalf of the executive council of the state was that he would work with the governing council, to ensure that whatever challenges lay ahead in implementing common grounds of agreement would come to fruition.

“That is why I have invited not only members of the  Executive Council of the state who have been working to develop a plan to take us through the accreditation journey but I am constituting a committee of very highly resourceful serving and retired public servants to also help us go through all the books, go through the payments, go through the revenues that come in and how they are utilized and also look at other assets of the institutions that are not yielding maximum revenue; how to put them to better use and set these institutions on the path of true autonomy, self-independence and also re-invigorated financing,” he said.

The governor appealed to the public servants and academic unions to assist the committee by making available to the members relevant information that would ensure that they arrived at the correct assessment of the situation which would in turn help them to make useful recommendations towards the solution to the   problems besetting the tertiary institutions.

“I like to emphasize that all the arms of the public service are here today so that nothing will be left to speculations, nothing will be left to the rumour mill so that you are informed in this process from the beginning and then every information that you have should be made available to the committee.

“I also use this opportunity to enlist the support and cooperation of all the membership and leadership of the governing councils and also that of the unions to give the fullest cooperation to members of the committee,” he stated.

Fashola said that members of the committee consisted of “a mix of financial and other experts,” saying that they would give the governing councils the financial advice based on the information made available to them, adding. “They cannot invent anything you do not give to them.

“One of the mandates they will have working with the accountant general of the state and bursars of the various institutions is to be able to access all of the banks where accounts of these institutions are kept for the members to know the true state of accounts of the institutions so that they can get a very clear picture from the beginning where the journey should start financially.”

Inaugurating the Ccommittee for Assessing of Internally Generated Revenues of Tertiary Institutions in the State, Fashola declared, “as I have told you, this is a journey and if we commence on this kind of note, exchanging information honestly and truthfully, we can get to the end of the journey successfully and in a very short time.”

Members of the 9-man committee to examine the sources and management of the Internally Generated Revenues of all the state-owned tertiary institutions include -Mrs. O. M. Akinwolemiwa, a retired state auditor general; Mr. Oluwatofarati Agusto, member, LASU Governing Council; Mr. Jide Olaleye, Senior Special Assistant (Finance Public Process Audit); Mrs. O. Labenjo, Director Finance and Admin (Finance); Mrs. O. A. Adegbuyi-Onikoyi, Director Internal Audit; Mr. O. A. Lawal, Director Finance and Admin (Office of Works); Mr. J. Dankuwo, Accountant (SUBEC); Mrs. H. M. Dele, Director (Systems Audit) representing Office of the State Auditor-General and Mr. A. A. Oshinubi, Deputy Director (Office of Special Adviser Education) serving as secretary.

— Kazeem Ugbodaga

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