It assured that the amount had been provided for in the 2021
Supplementary Budget.
Government also said that it would commence disbursement of
the N30 billion revitalisation funds to public universities very soon.
Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige,
disclosed this Thursday in his office after a marathon conciliation meeting
between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU).
The meeting was convened by the minister to evaluate the
level of implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by both
parties in December last year and the resolutions of the follow up meeting held
on August 2 this year.
Speaking to journalists after the meeting, Ngige said they
held fruitful deliberations, stressing that the six issues on the agenda were
satisfactorily addressed.
He assured that the government was not dragging its feet on
anything that would make the university system to be good, adding that they
were desirous that public universities should be fit and proper places for
learning and research.
In a statement signed by the Deputy Director Press and
Public Relations, Mr. Charles Akpan, the minister reaffirmed the commitment of
the government to uplifting the standard of Nigerian universities, saying the
President Muhammadu Buhari administration would try as much as possible within
its limited resources, to make meaningful contributions to the development of
the university system.
On the issue of revitalisation funds for public
universities, the minister said the meeting received an update from the
National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Federal Ministry of Education
and they were happy that the assignment given to them had been done
satisfactorily.
According to him, the NUC and the Federal Ministry of
Education did their assignment in terms of getting the universities to come and
defend the various allocations given to them based on the needs of the
universities.
“A committee to monitor has also been sent up by NUC. We are
happy about that and expect the disbursement of the revitalisation funds to
commence very soon,” he said.
On the issue of Earned Allowances, Ngige said the meeting
was equally satisfied with the work that the NUC had done, having
compartmentalised the payments based on the universities and the existing
unions.
He said the sum of N22. 172 billion was provided in the 2021
Supplementary Budget for Earned Allowances to all workers in the universities.
He expressed optimism that the payments to the individual
universities would commence very soon, as the meeting set a timeline for the
payment to begin on or before October 30, 2021.
He revealed that they received the report from the National
Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on the preferred payment
platform of ASUU, known as the University Transparency Accountability Solution
(UTAS) system.
“We are also happy with the report they gave. We asked them
to liaise with ASUU and NUC to work on this system for deployment by the users
as soon as possible,” he said.
According to Ngige, the meeting looked at the promotion
arrears and other outstanding payments of the university teachers and gave the
timeline of the end of October for the issues to be resolved once and for all
by the universities, to enable the affected persons enjoy the fruits of their
promotion.
On the issue of shortfalls in payments, the minister said
the meeting asked the IPPIS office to have a template and liaise with Vice
Chancellors and bursars in the universities to hold discussion next week, in
order to develop a foolproof template that would enable everybody to get his or
her salary.
“We have it on good authority that some university teachers
have not been paid for several months because of issues of incomplete data. We
have told IPPIS office to gather those data as soon as possible to ensure that
those university teachers were paid. A worker is due his wages. As a
government, we don’t agree that we will use issues of incomplete data to hold
back salaries of workers for months. We think that should be sorted out as
well. We gave a timeline of the end of the month to do this.”
Responding, the President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel
Osodeke, expressed hope that all the issues would be resolved quickly for the
benefit of the children, the university system and the country in general.
Others at the meeting were the Permanent Secretary, Federal
Ministry of Labour and Employment, Peter Yerima Tarfa, Executive Secretary of
NUC, Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, representatives of the Federal Ministry of
Education, IPPIS Office, and the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages
Commission (NSIWC).
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