Funmi Olaitan, Ibadan

Disturbed by the quality of work being done by some contractors engaged under Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) projects at University of Ibadan, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), in the university, has set up a monitoring committee to ensure that contractors engaged by the school follow the contract model.

The union at its congress lamented that some buildings constructed in Faculty of Education and in Department of Statistics by the same contractor in less than a year could be described as having failed integrity test.

Members who spoke also complained about the integrity of other buildings being constructed in some faculties by contractors in the university.

Chairman of the union, Mr Deji Omole, while speaking on the resolutions of the congress, stated that the union would not fold its arms and pretend that all is well while those who did not know how the union went on struggles for the little funds coming to the university system to profit while failing to erect buildings that will endure and stand the test of time.

He stated that the spirit of those who died in the course of ASUU struggles for intervention fund such as late Professor Festus Iyayi, will hunt those engaged in shoddy deal with public funds.

While noting that the job of the committee is to perform an oversight function rather than being seen as witch-hunting, he added that it will ascertain if the projects being delivered are of standard and complied with necessary specifications.

The ASUU boss said that the union deserves to know how government money from TETFUND is being administered to fund infrastructure upgrade in the university.

He said, “We need to go through the papers and see what model was specified and what has been delivered. We need to begin to firm up our oversight function to ensure that those that are supposed to be in jail for poor performances are not handling projects on our campuses. This is why we have decided to set up a committee to oversee how government funds are being administered to fund building projects in the university.

"We deserve to know because no contractor fought with us when we were struggling in getting government to increase funding to universities. People lost lives while we went on the struggles. We noted that some projects in Statistics and Faculty of Education have failed, we will not allow our labour to be siphoned into private pockets."