From Godwin Agia, Jalingo
The Chairman of the visitation panel to the Taraba State University, Prof. Josiah Sabo-Kente on Thursday said the University management was operating below the National Universities Commission minimum standard and needs a total overhaul to save the future of the institution.
Kente who disclosed this while interacting with journalists in Jalingo said the pattern and frequent turnover in the appointment of the Chairman of the Governing Council without a university administration experience has adversely affected the implementation of the university’s strategic goals, policies and direction.
According to him, the university which is currently running 53 programmes has only 36 Professors, 45 Readers and 59 Senior Lecturers with some departments having only one Professor and 18 non academic staff, the practice which he said was unacceptable.
Kente further explained that the university faces notable deficit in academic staff across its facilities and departments, with only 609 tenured academic staff members compared to the 1,819 non-academic staff.
“Out of the number of academic staff, 218 are graduate assistants in training and 140 visiting, adjunct or sabbatical staff in the institution. This is against the NUC benchmark of 70 percent academic staff and 30 percent non-academic staff.
“The university has since inception in 2008 operated a poor accounting system. At a point from 2012 to 2016, the university operated without a cash book, making it difficult to reconcile financial records of the university, but we used financial experts on the panel to make sense of the financial spendings within the period.
“Financial infractions from 2010 to 2023 in the institution reveals significant discrepancies and irregularities with the grand total of these financial infractions amounting to over N3,5bn.
“This underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive investigation of the university’s financial management practices, including handling of statutory allocations and internally generated revenue,” he explained.
According to the report as sighted by our correspondent, the university obtained an unauthorized loan of N1.5bn with Zenith Bank plc which was revalidated in March 2022 and currently has outstanding liabilities of N4.8bn, including unpaid salaries and third- party deductions.
This is even as the report highlighted infrastructural challenges such as lighting, water shortage, insufficient medical facilities among others and called for immediate action to address the challenges.
Governor Agbu Kefas had on 24th December, 2023 constituted a visitation panel to the university with a 12 point terms of reference with a view to identifying the challenges confronting the institution to enable government intervene and reposition the institution in line with the administration’s free education policy.
Our correspondent reports that Governor Kefas who had earlier received the report promised to implement the recommendations of the panel as contained in the report.
