The Implementation and Monitoring Committee on the Needs Assessment Report on Nigerian public Universities set up by the Federal Government has completed the distribution of the first intervention fund of N100billion for provision of critical infrastructure on the campuses.
Chairman of the Presidential Committee and Governor of Benue State, Dr Gabriel Suswam announced this to newsmen Thursday in Abuja at the end of the Committee's meeting in Abuja.
The meeting which held at the Benue Governor's-lodge was attended by the Ministers of Education, Labour and Productivity, Representatives of both the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Education, representatives of federal agencies involved in funding university education and the various workers unions in the university system.
Suswam said the meeting unanimously adopted a report of it's technical sub-committee which had earlier carried out the distribution of the funds to each of the beneficiary universities based on a criteria adopted from the Needs Assessment Report.
According o the Governor, at least 61federal and state universities across the country would benefit from the N100billion fund address the gross deficit in critical infrastructure adding that each of the 36 states of the Federation would have one university covered in the first phase of the intervention programme.
He said the N100billion would be utilized for building new hostels, renovation of existing hostels, provision of libraries, laboratories, lectures rooms and theatres, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities among others.
The Governor further explained that the distribution of the fund was done in a fair and equitable manner based on a properly defined criteria adding that a representative of the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) participated in the technical sub-committee deliberations, which made recommendations to the main committee.
"Our Committee will present the spreadsheet of the projects to Mr President for his approval after which the funds would be released to the Governing Councils of the benefitting Universities after. Meeting with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Minister of Education," he stressed.
Governor Suswam then renewed his appeal to the striking university lecturers to call of the on- going strike in the interest of the nation since most of the issues which gave rise to threefold have been substantially addressed by the federal government.
He specifically referred to the contentious issue of the Earned Allowances for which the federal government has approved N30billion for immediate release to the universities to enable them pay their staff after due verification of the various claims of their workers.
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