The Tertiary Education Trust Fund TETFund, has set an ambitious target of N500 billion education tax collection for the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, in 2021. Chairman, TETFund Board of Trustees, BoT, Alhaji Kashim Imam, who disclosed this at the 2020 TETFund/FIRS Joint Interactive Forum in Ilorin, Kwara State, said the new target was necessary as the number of beneficiary public institutions has risen to 226.
Imam said the fund was on course to surpass the N277 billion mark set for 2020, adding that as at September, education tax collection had already hit N251 billion, and that the figure could rise up to N300 billion by the end of December 2020. “I am happy to report that for about two to three years now we have been in the region of N250 billion. TETFund’s budget for this year was N250 billion; for this year, TETFund gave the Federal Inland Revenue Service a target of N277 billion for the year 2020. We are very much on course not only to actualise that target but to surpass that target.
“As at the end of September, collection was in the region of N251 billion; if we are lucky, we may actually hit N300 billion by 31st of December. ‘We have set a new target already for 2021 and that target is the sum of N500 billion. Considering the magnitude of the challenges facing tertiary education in Nigeria, we cannot afford to do less,” he said. Speaking on the theme of the forum titled, “New Trust in Sustaining the EDT Collection During Covid-19 Pandemic for Effective Service Delivery of the Mandate of the Fun,” he said TETFund was not comfortable with just sustaining collection as each year the fund makes effort to ensure improvement in its tax collection.
Imam noted that the fund has interacted with the Federal Inland Revenue Service over the 2021 target and FIRS made commitment toward meeting the N500 billion mark set by TETFund.