Fides Et Ratio Academy, an educational organisation, has dismissed an investigative report in the media alleging a N2.9 billion contract awarded to it by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has not been executed.

The Managing Director of the Academy, Paul Chukwuma said this while answering questions from newsmen after a media parley on the firm’s plan to roll out massive skill training programmes in the country.

Chukwuma said the organisation never had a contract with TETFund but only entered into an agreement with the Fund.

He said it was on a skill training programme for directors and deputy directors of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as students in higher educational institutions.

Chukwuma, who expressed surprise over the erroneous report, said the academy’s project was fully executed.

“I don’t have a contract. What I have is service engagement. I don’t do contract with my education interest. In the university, if you want a course you pay for it,” he said.

On the first component of the project with TETFund, which involves training of ICT directors and their deputies, Chukwuma said a total of 502 directors and deputy directors were trained.

“TETFund has something like a consolidated structure where they will negotiate for services, and every institution will benefit from that negotiated service.

“If this phone is N100, they will now say we will take N500 for 500 institutions and we will pay N3, so that other institutions will key into it and use the functionality, and we refused because it was a ridiculous pricing module.

“We went back and forth because what we had was an MoU which stipulated that this programme would run for like three years,” Chukwuma said.

He said the argument was that  “you have not done this, you have some time, and even if you lose in two years, may be the third year you will get something”.

Chukwuma said he did the  project at a loss, and it was so painful that the project he did at a loss was  being wrongly reported.

On the students’ component of the project, he said it was also underpriced.

” Instead of our normal fee of 20 dollars per module, there are three modules, instead of 20 dollars per module per participant, what TETFund eventually agreed to pay, which they have not even finished paying per participant, is N1535,”  Chukwuma said.

He lamented that the report also alleged that Fides Et Ratio Academy had no functional office or website.

“The first point on that publication was that I don’t have an office, that an attempt was made to locate my office, and the report ended that somehow they couldn’t find the office.

“When I read that, I felt somehow because I have been in this office close to 20 years, at least for 15 years, the report said they couldn’t find my office, but you can see I have an office and this is my office.

“The second thing that was raised was that we don’t have a functional website. We have a very functional website,” Chukwuma said.

He said the third issue that was raised was that the training was not done, that they just went around and had meetings, but he  asserted that the report on this issue is mischievous.

Speaking on the essence of the media parley, Chukwuma said there was an urgent need for Nigerians to embrace ICT skills instead of relying on mere certificates.

Chukwuma said the organisation was established in 2006 to address the problem of skill gaps in the country while also in the process of  setting up a university.

He linked the unemployment problem in the nation to the production of graduates who are unable to add value as a result of skills, hence the need to push the agenda of ICT skills development in the country.

Chukwuma said that the organisation will in a few days time, roll out a massive programme that would go a long way to bridge the skills gap in the country. (NAN)