The House of Representatives has revealed that the Federal Polytechnic, FEDPOLY Ugep, Cross River State, established in 2021, currently operates with just 142 students while employing 154 academic and non-academic staff.
The institution has reportedly spent approximately N600 million on personnel and overhead costs, alongside an additional N38 million on local trips.
The findings emerged during an oversight session where the House Committee on Tertiary Education invited several federal polytechnics and technical institutions from the South-South region, including Federal Polytechnic, Ugep. The committee, led by Chairman Fuad Laguda (APC, Lagos), expressed discontent over the institution’s expenditures, deeming the financial allocations disproportionate to its student population.
In his submission, the Rector of Federal Polytechnic Ugep, Prof. Edward Okey, disclosed that the institution utilized a N2 billion take-off grant to renovate the abandoned Ugep Community Secondary School as a temporary campus, while also constructing facilities at the Institute of Technology Management, which now serves as the institution’s permanent site.
He described challenges in securing a suitable starting location, noting that the temporary site had been in a state of disrepair for 25 years.
The committee further criticized the institution’s budget breakdown, which includes a capital allocation of N25 million and an overhead cost of N159 million. Lawmakers described the presentations from Ugep and other invited institutions as unsatisfactory, highlighting inefficiencies in resource utilization.
Meanwhile, the House has called on President Bola Tinubu to direct the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, to unfreeze the accounts of the National Social Investment Programmes Agency (NSIPA) within 72 hours.
In a motion led by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu and supported by 20 lawmakers, the House noted that the account freeze has disrupted key poverty alleviation initiatives, including the N-Power program, leaving 395,731 beneficiaries unpaid a total of N81.3 billion in stipends allocated under the amended 2023 and 2024 budgets.
Kalu emphasized that NSIPA’s mandate aligns with President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to mitigate the effects of economic reforms on vulnerable populations. He raised concerns that the account freeze, which has persisted for over three months, undermines social welfare efforts, delays progress toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and erodes public confidence in poverty alleviation programs.
The House urged the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management to address administrative delays affecting NSIPA’s operations and resolve the bottlenecks impeding its mandate. Lawmakers also resolved to transmit their recommendations to the Senate for concurrence, highlighting the urgent need to restore the agency’s functionality and credibility.
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