TEFT FRAUD AND SCANDAL IN ESUT

Campaign to Save ESUT

Enugu State University of Science and

Technology,

Enugu.

31 July, 2012

 

The Vice Chancellor,

Enugu State University of Science

& Technology,

Enugu State.

 

Dear Sir,

 

TEFT FRAUD AND SCANDAL IN ESUT – The Role of Engrs. E.B. Ojiogu and Chukwu

 

We have verified reports that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TEFT) Desk Officer, Engr. E. B. Ojiogu, and the Director of Works, Engr. Chukwu, have collectively and individually and on several occasions disgustingly abused their exalted positions and high offices and thereby severely delayed, frustrated and compromised the execution of the many TEFT building construction projects that have been attracted to the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, ESUT, by the present university management.

 

Engr. E. B. Ojiogu and Engr. Chukwu committed these abuses collectively and on several occasions by giving un-implementable directives to the building contractors handling the TEFT projects in ESUT, even as they lack the powers to give them directives. The building construction companies have openly complained that the ideal situation which they – the contractors – experience in other universities where they also handle TEFT projects is that they are supervised by the respective project Consultants or Project Managers- Consultant Architects, Consultant Civil/ Structural Engineers, Consultant Quantity Surveyors/ Cost Consultants, Consultant Services Engineers etc. and NEVER by the TEFT Desk Officer, nor by the Director of Works.

 

The TEFT Project Consultants are professional firms who implemented various aspects of the projects conception and design and have full complements of suitably qualified and experienced staff who should ideally supervise the construction companies with the objective of ensuring that the contractors implement the exact specifications of the projects designs.

 

The TEFT Desk Officer, the contractors insist, is supposed to be the liaison between the TEFT and the university in ensuring the timely payments of all contractors whose project payment certificates are ready. This role, they insist, the TEFT Desk Officer has permanently abandoned. The Director of Works, the contractors insist, should represent the interests of the ESUT in ensuring that the construction work is not unnecessarily delayed. The Director of Works has also abandoned this responsibility and is chasing shadows most times.

 

Despite that, Engr. Ojiogu and Engr. Chukwu should not relate directly with the Construction Companies, except through the Supervising Consultants, they have on several occasions done this, harassing and intimidating the contractors thereby forcing them to part with huge sums of money as settlement. These two officers are so greedy and insatiable that they have on many occasions collected huge bribes running into millions of naira from the contractors. The most appalling aspect of these nefarious acts is that these two officers use the name of high ranking members of the university management like the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar to ensure that the contractors pay them as much money as possible. Another disturbing aspect of these entire scandals is that even after collecting these huge bribes, Engr Ojiogu and Engr Chukwu still refuse to attend site meetings, saying that the contractors’ site offices are not conducive at all for them! Are they supposed to have the site meeting in a luxury hotel? This further reveals that all that they are interested in is the selfish exploitation and extortion of the contractors, thus milking the  contractors dry; and they have no interest at all in doing their work!

 

In addition, because Engr Ojiogu and Engr Chukwu have misused their privileged positions to chase away the projects consultants who should have been the supervisors of those TEFT projects, there is no work program even in their rudimentary forms in any of the project sites; thereby making project monitoring and evaluation impossible task. The absence of work schedules which is supposed to be an important requirement of the contract award and evaluation process reveals further the extent of shoddiness and abuse of due process embedded in the TEFT project administration.

 

Another revealing feature of corruption and shoddiness in the TEFT projects administration is that there is no program of quality control/quality assurance in any of the project sites; and this puts several question marks on the quality of materials being used in all the TEFT project sites in ESUT. This further highlights the utter ineptitude of these two men – Engr. Ojiogu and Engr. Chukwu – who were given responsibilities they were ill equipped to handle, coupled with their moral bankruptcy. Rather than do the work they were paid to do, these people continue to aggressively serve their selfish, parochial and primitive interests at the expense of the collective interests of the university.

 

God bless ESUT

 

To be continued

 

Cc

Hon. Commissioner for Education, Enugu State

Pro-Chancellor ESUT

Deputy Vice Chancellor ESUT

Registrar, ESUT

ASUU, ESUT

SSANU, ESUT

NASU, ESUT

Student Union, ESUT

Ohaneze Ndigbo

The Clergy:

His Lordship, Bishop E.O. Chukwuma

His Lordship, Bishop C.V.C. Onaga

Msgr Obiora Ike

ESUT Governing Council

University Community

The General Public