THE House of Representatives Committee on University Education has tasked the vice chancellors and management of Federal University of Lafia, Nasarawa State and Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo, Benue State, on the need to judiciously utilise both human and material resources.
The Chairman, House Committee on University Education, Abubakar Hassan Fulata, made this known after a visit to the two universities over the weekend.
Fulata said without effective and efficient use of the scarce resources, the aim of setting up the two universities will not be achieved.
He said the legislators were on oversight visit to the two new varsities, during which the institutions were warned of the danger of spending money that was not appropriated.
Fulata noted that although universities are not revenue generating agencies like Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Inland Revenue Service, among others, it is an infraction on the part of management to spend any amount of money internally generated without appropriation.
According to him, the power of appropriation is vested on the National Assembly.
Victor AfamOgene, one of the members of the committee, said the management of the universities should take the welfare and security of students very serious.
Ogene said it will be wrong for the VC of a university to claim ignorance of the total number of students who are staying in hostels and those staying off campus.
Reacting to the oversight visit of the House Committee on University Education, the Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Lafia, Prof. Shehu Abdulrahaman commended the lawmakers for their efforts.
He said the visit of the legislators opened their eyes to several areas that will improve the running of the school.
In the same vein, the Vice Chancellor of Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo, Prof Innocent Ujah, thanked the committee for the oversight visit.
Prof Ujah sought the support of the committee to further improve the quality of services in the university.
He said the school under him and the entire management team is working to enhance and sustain professionalism in line with the codes and ethics of various professional medical bodies as well as in line with international best practice.
The VCs of the two universities also decried the skyrocketing electricity bills handed down by the electricity distribution company.
They sought quick intervention of National Assembly and relevant government bodies to address the challenge.
