The Bursar, Osun State College of Education, Ila-Orangun, Dr Olarewaju Oyedeji has disclosed how the institution tackled corruption, recovered stolen funds and return the school back to the path of progress.
Speaking with Vanguard in his office inside the school campus on Friday, he said the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Tetfund had blacklisted the school from its funds because of the failure of the 2013 Amphitheater project valued at about N400 million in the school.
According to the Bursar, the school was blacklisted by Tetfund over the failure of an Amphitheatre project sited in the school despite the fact that about N400 million was invested in it.
“When I resumed office, I went through the papers and discovered that certain individuals decided to pocket the monies meant to execute the project, hence, the agency blacklisted the school from benefitting from its fund.
“We then put a mechanism in place, we invited everyone involved, and we talked to them amicably but it was not yielding results, hence, we invited the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC to intervene. Months after we started recovering monies.
“Salaries of some workers were deducted on a monthly basis, some returned wholesome amounts while others are facing prosecution before Federal High Court over the matter. On the whole, we were able to recover about N100 million.
“We then write Tetfund that we want to invest the money into the failed project and we were given approval. After that, we went back to the agency to renew our relationship and we were put back on their good books.
“Today, several Tetfund projects have been completed within the school. The agency specifically requested that the school remove some individuals from handling their project which we did and to the glory of God, the school has been benefitting from transparency and efficient project monitoring which we introduced”.
He added that cleaning the system was not without resistance from those benefitting in the anomaly but the prompt support of the management made it possible to rid the system of corruption.
