In order to resolve the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) the Federal Government on Wednesday detailed the intricacies of the agreement which led to the current situation. This was disclosed by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, who expressed hope of truncation of the warning strike when he spoke with newsmen at the end of a conciliation meeting between the government and the union.
ASUU, on February 14, embarked on a one-month warning strike in order to compel the Federal Government to address their demands, some of which had been lingering since 2009. Part of the ASUU demands includes the renegotiation of the ASUU/FG 2009 agreement, sustainability of the university autonomy by deploying the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to replace the government’s “imposed” Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
The union has also demanded the release of reports of visitation panels to federal universities and distortions in salary payment challenges.
Others include funding for revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowance, poor funding of state universities, and promotion arrears. Nonetheless, Ngige said the meeting with ASUU leaders on Tuesday night, agreed on many issues and a timeline was scheduled for the implementation of the agreements.
According to him, ASUU officials agreed to return to their members with offers made by the government and revert to him before the week ran out. He noted that many of the items in the 2020 Memorandum of Action (MOA), had been dealt with exhaustively, while some were being addressed.
“We have only one or two areas that are new. One of the new areas is the renegotiation of the Conditions of Service, which is called the `2009 Agreement’.
“An agreement was reached in 2009 that their Conditions of Service would be reviewed every five years. It was done in 2014.
“We started one in which the former UNILAG Pro-Chancellor, Wale Babalakin (SAN), was chairing the committee.
“After Babalakin, Prof. Manzali was in charge and the committee came up with a draft document, proposed by the Federal Ministry of Education and ASUU.
“Today, Manzali’s committee has become defunct because many of the people in the committee are no longer pro-chancellors,’’ the minister explained. Ngige said that a new team had been constituted to take a second look at that document.
“This is to make sure that some of the allowances are not against the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) fixed rates for wages and allowances.
“If you propose allowances that do not comply with NSIWC rates, the government will not be able to accept it.
“So, it is important that they do the right thing from the beginning so that whatever the committee presents can be approved by the Federal Executive Council,’’ he said.
Ngige also said that the meeting fixed a timeline of six weeks for the new committee set up by the education ministry to round up everything on the Conditions of Service.
He noted that on the issue of University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) for the payment of salaries, the meeting mandated a joint committee to conduct an integrity test on the platform in conjunction with neutral experts.
“We told them to conclude the test by March 8. If they conclude, we are expected to work on it within six weeks.
“Once we conclude the reconciliation, if the Federal Government is in arrears on any tranche, the finance minister will look for money to pay; even though the Federal Government does not have money.
“Earned allowance is an allowance for the excessive workload. Last year, it was paid based on the rule of the thumb theory of 10 per cent of total personnel cost.
“This year, we have told the National Universities Commission to put up a committee and within the next three weeks, come up with a figure that will be sent to the finance minister.
“For me, I think, we are on course, ASUU should go to their members, show them offers made to them by the government so that they can call off the strike,’’ Ngige said.
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