By Aaron Ossai
The House of Representatives Committee on Polytechnics and other Higher Technical Education yesterday expressed shock over the discovery that Federal Polytechnic, Ugep, Cross Rivers State spends over N600 million on personnel and overhead costs despite having only 142 students and 154 academic and non-academic staff.
This was discovered after a submission on budget performance and other activities by the Rector of the Polytechnic, Professor Edward Okey before the Committee.
The Committee had as part of its ongoing oversight function invited Federal Polytechnics and some other technical institutions from the South-South to appear which include; Federal Polytechnic, Orogun; Federal Polytechnic, Ugep; Federal Polytechnic Oil &Gas, Bonny; Federal Polytechnic, Auchi; Federal Polytechnic, Ekowe; Federal Polytechnic Ukana and the National Institute of Construction Technology Management, Uromi.
The Committee Chairman, Fouad Kayode Laguda and members were also angered that, Federal Polytechnic Ugep also spent N38 million on local travels.
In his presentation, the Rector claimed that, they also spent N2 billion take-off grants to renovate the abandoned, dilapidated structure of Ugep Community Secondary School to use as a temporary campus and put up structures on the Institute of Technology Management (ITM) which he said they have eventually taken over as their permanent site.
“Our school was established in 2021. When we went to Ugep in 2021, we were to start the school at a temporary site in the state Polytechnic called Institute of Technology and Management (ITM). But, when we got there, we could not get the state Polytechnic to start the school.
“So, the first challenge we had was to identify a temporary site to start the school to take off that took us more than a year, because Ugep is not a town, it’s a village. It’s a big town, but it’s a local town. To get a school for us to start was not an easy task.
“After going around the village, we ended up with dilapidated buildings of a secondary school called Ugep Community Secondary School. The Principal of that school told us that, those buildings were abandoned for 25 years. So, we have to renovate those buildings. It took us more than one year to renovate those buildings for us to start.
“With our 2022 take up, we identified a permanent site. We started different projects, about 10 projects on the permanent site. Some are at different levels of completion. Getting students and staff in Ugep has not been an easy task, because of some kind of stigma that Ugep carries”, he said.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Fuad Kayode Laguda while addressing the Rectors at the end of the sitting expressed the disappointment of the Committee over the poor presentation by the institutions.
“We called schools from South-South for an oversight and… Not one of the schools met the required requirements or did what was expected, considering the fact that you had over a week notification”, he added.
