The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed says public universities budget N1 billion annually on energy.
He said the overhead of N11million-N12 million released for public universities to run their operations monthly was not enough as most universities spend between N60 million and N80 million monthly to buy diesel, service their generators, and do other things.
The executive secretary of NUC said this in a Pre-Convocation Lecture he delivered ahead of the 4th Combined Convocation Ceremony of Bingham University in Karu, Nasarawa State.
Speaking on the topic: ‘Issues in the Nigerian Tertiary Education System’, the NUC boss linked Nigeria’s present challenges to poor investments in the education sector.
The executive secretary of NUC said: “Public universities have to budget close to N1 billion for energy every year to buy diesel, pay NEPA, service generators, attend to some other things, and what does the government give them?
“Today (Friday) at the National Assembly, we are going for federal universities budget defense and we hope that if we are lucky, the National Assembly may allocate between N11 million to N12 million per month as overheads to take charge of energy every month.
“But in reality, what universities spend is between N60 million to N80 million monthly to pay for electricity, and that is why there are inadequacies of water, counseling, support for teachers, communication, internet, and cleaning services.”
