Effect of Financial Control on Educational Sector Project Development: Evidence from Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa

Abstract

Tertiary institutions are supposed to be corner of excellence, a place of building brains training of disciplined and highly skilled individuals. A condition was basic learning facilities are lacking in our tertiary institutions, spells doom for the state and country at large. The study sought to determine the effect of Financial Control on Educational Sector Project Development in Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa. The variables which were used to determine the specific objectives are:; the Financial Control (Independent variable) was proxied by Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETF) and Internally Generated Revenue; and Educational Sector Project Development (dependent variable) was proxied by Expenditure on Capital Project Development. The study employed annual time series data spanning the years from 2011- 2020. The study was based on the Ex-post facto research design. The target population of the study comprises of Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa financial control and developmental projects between the years 2011–2020. All population was censored, in which case the TETFund, Internally Generated Revenue, and educational sector project development as individual component of the aggregate were taken into consideration. Data were analyzed using the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lags and the Ordinary Least Square via the use of E-views 10. The study concludes that TETFund has no any significant influence on the developmental projects in Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa; that TETFund has only succeeded in few Nigerian Tertiary Institutions. This could be as a result of lack of effective internal control and this has given rise to numerous ills in the organization, and could stand the high risk of losing large portions of its resources through wastage, embezzlement, misappropriation and financial recklessness. The study also concludes that the systems adopted by the Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa in the area of revenue generation have no any significant effect on the Polytechnic developmental projects. The study recommended that the Management in charge of the TETFund department in the public Tertiary Institutions to highly prioritize the formulation, implementation and monitoring of financial control mechanisms in the TETFund; as such, they ensure that appropriate infrastructure, resources and budgetary allocations to support good financial control mechanisms. Also, the study suggested that in order to enhance revenue generation and optimize the ability to minimize corruption, Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa is urged to enforce Trearry Single Account (TSA), e-transaction systems (e-payment system and e-collection system) to its fullest.