Shock waves currently trail the very recent revelation that the management of the Federal Polytechnic, Ugep, Cross River State, spent a whooping N600 million naira on 154 academic and non-academic staff. It additionally spent N38 million on local travel, within the same period.
This revelation was made by the Rector of the institution, Edward Okey, while appearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Polytechnics and Other Higher Technical Education, as part of submissions on budget performance and related activities this past Monday.
Okey submitted claims that the school’s management spent a N20 billion take-off grant to renovate abandoned and dilapidated structures in Community Secondary School, Ugep, for use as a temporary campus as well as to develop structures on the site of the Institute of Technology Management (ITM).
But House Committee Chairman, Fouad Kayode Laguda, and committee members were outraged and expressed anger over this revelations, loudly wondering how, “…a polytechnic—especially a federal polytechnic—with 142 students spending N496 million on personnel alone, almost N500 million, is unjustifiable. Your overhead is N159 million for a school with 142 students, and your capital is N25 million. What is the justification for all this spending?”
The rector meanwhile insisted that: “Our school was established in 2021. When we went to Ugep in 2021, we were to start the school at a temporary site, the state Polytechnic called the Institute of Technology and Management (ITM). However, when we got there, we could not use the state polytechnic to start the school. So, the first challenge we faced was identifying a temporary site. That took us more than a year because Ugep is a big town, but getting a school for us to start was not easy.”
“When we started, we had 16 students. This year, we have admitted 63 so far, bringing our total to 79. We have also taken over the students and staff of ITM. In total, we now have 132 students,” the rector said.
However, interjections followed with one committee member insisting that, “It is high time we tell ourselves the truth. If you have 142 students, that’s like an elementary school.” Further interjections and reviews described the institution’s spending as wasteful.
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