The Federal Government has begun
moves to prevent an industrial action in the country’s public universities as
the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ three-week deadline ended on Sunday.
The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka
Nwajiuba, in an interview with The PUNCH on Sunday, said the ministry had written a letter to the
Ministry of Finance on the payment of allowances to staff of universities.
But the union told one of our
correspondents that government had only met one of its demands.
ASUU had on November 15 given the Federal Government a three-week
ultimatum over government failure to meet its
demands
The lecturers threatened to embark on another round of industrial action following
the ‘government’s unfaithfulness’ in implementation of the Memorandum of
Action it signed with the union upon
which last year’s strike action was suspended.
After the union’s National Executive
Council meeting at the University of
Abuja on November 13 and 14, ASUU
President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, lamented that despite meeting with
the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige on October 14, 2021, on issues including funding for revitalization
of public universities, earned academic allowances, University Transparency
Accountability Solution, promotion arrears, renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FGN
agreement, and the inconsistencies in Integrated Payroll and Personnel information
system payment, none of the demands had
been met.
The Federal Government promised to pay N30bn as revitalisation fund to universities.
It also promised to pay N22.1bn earned allowances to university workers.
When contacted on Saturday night,
ASUU president told one of our correspondents that government had not met all
the demands.
Osodeke said the union would meet
on Sunday to take a decision on the issue. As of the time of sending this
report, the union was still meeting.
“The deadline will elapse by Sunday. They only
met one out of our requests which is the NEEDS assessment; the revitalisation
funds of N30bn but they paid only N20bn to the universities. The other requests
have not been fulfilled even the ones
they promised. Our officers are meeting tomorrow, we will let you know our
decision by tomorrow (Sunday),” he said on Saturday.
When contacted at 8:30pm on
Sunday, ASUU president said the union was still
meeting. “We haven’t taken a final decision yet. We have to consult all
our branches and zones. The national cannot just sit down and call for action.
The government didn’t implement what they promised us,” he said
But Nwajiuba said the ministry of
education had written its finance counterpart on the payment, adding that the
Minister of Finance had acknowledged the receipt of the letter.He said, “We
have sent a letter to the ministry of finance and in the letter we did a
breakdown of each university and the individuals to be paid. We do not pay
unions. What we will do is to pay each university. We have done the breakdown.
“I spoke to the minister of
finance yesterday and she said she got the letter and her ministry would work
with the breakdown that we gave them. The payment will be paid as soon as due
process is concluded by the ministry of finance. But it should be noted that
the money will not be paid to the union as a whole but it would be paid to each
university.” ,,
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com