ASUU: Tax reform will destroy education

The Benin Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities has kicked against the proposed Nigeria Tax Reform Bill by the federal government, saying it will destroy public institutions in the country.

Addressing journalists at the weekend, the Zonal Coordinator, ASUU Benin Zone, comprising nine universities, Prof. Monday Lewis Igbafen, said the planned gradual facing out of TETFund in the proposed bill is out to kill public education in the country.

“ASUU is alarmed by Section 59(3) of the Nigeria Tax Bill (NTB) 2024 which states that only 50 per cent of the Development Levy would be made available to TETFund in 2025 while NITDA, NASENI and NELFUND would share the remaining percentages.

“The consequence of this section is that TETFund will receive 66 per cent in 2027, 2028 and 2029 years of assessment and zero per cent thereafter, especially from 2030,” he said.

He said education is a public good and government must not be allowed to destroy Nigerian tertiary education, noting that the government is out to destroy education using the tax bill.

He said the union is alerting Nigerians that the new tax bill is inimical to the well-being of the education of our people because of its danger to the continued existence of TETFund.

“As a union of intellectuals, we vehemently reject this tax reform bill, especially for its attempt to erode the concrete relevance of TETFund to the infrastructural development, postgraduate training and research capacity building in Nigeria’s public tertiary institutions.

“TETFund is relevant in the transformation of tertiary institutions in the country. Since its formation, it has remained the cornerstone of the rapid transformation of tertiary institutions in terms of manpower, infrastructural and academic development.

“While the Nigerians are in the wilderness over the recalcitrance of government to resolve the unresolved issues arising from the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, our union, ASUU, is worried by the inclusion of the “death” of TETFund, effective from 2030 in tax the reform bill that has become an albatross to the Tinubu government.

“We are calling for mass resistance against this potent threat to the life-wire of tertiary education in our country because the impeding abrogation of TETFund will take public tertiary education many years back and undermine the modest gains in repositioning Nigerian universities for global reckoning and transformative development.”

He noted that against the 26 per cent benchmark of budgetary allocation to education prescribed by the United Nations, Nigeria in the past few years has continued to oscillate between 5per cent and 7 with the Tinubu government retaining 7per cent budgetary allocation to education in its 2025 budget.

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