ASUU Strike: meeting with FG ends in deadlock, govt may take legal action

 ASUU Strike: meeting with FG ends in deadlock, govt may take legal action

By Modupe Shodeinde

The meeting between the Academic Union Staff of Universities and Federal Government has once again ended in a deadlock over the payment platform for salaries and other allowances.

The meeting which held on Wednesday in a third row, ended in a stalemate with both sides failing to reach an agreement around the payment platform to be deployed.

Also, the Union is reported to have insisted that the Earned Academic Allowance of N30bn offered by the Federal Government would be for its members alone, with the FG team taking a stance against it.

Speaking to journalists after the parley, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige said the university lecturers had earlier demanded N110b for the revitalisation of the university system, adding that the Federal Goverment offered N20b and N30b for earned academic allowances.

“We offered N20b as revitalisation fund. On Earned Academic Allowances, the government offered N30b to all the unions in the universities, making it N50b altogether.

“ASUU is saying that the N30b should be for lecturers alone, irrespective of the fact that there are three other unions. So there is a little problem there. We don’t have any money to offer apart from this N30b.”

Ngige explained that the Federal Government was not against the revitalisation of the University System but added that it was constrained by the dire economic situation occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Minister however said relative progress was made concerning use of UTAS, as the union submitted their document on the software for evaluation by the NITDA.

“As you know last week, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy had approved that NITDA gets their system (UTAS) and subject it to integrity test. This test should be conducted without fear or favour and as early as possible. So today (Wednesday), they have submitted the document for onward transmission to NITDA.” he said.

He also said that an agreement over the transition period for the payment of the salary and other allowances had not been decided.

“One other issue that has arisen is the issue of the transition period. How do you get the Earned Academic Allowances that is due to you or any other entitlement that the government want to pay you?

“They want an exemption from the IPPIS and the government side headed by the Accountant-General of the Federation said that IPPIS is the only government-approved payment platform. So that is where were are for now.

According to Ngige the government team will meet on Friday and a date will be fixed for a meeting with the union, if the need arises.

In response to a question on the unending strike action, the Minister said the FG may be forced to resort to legal action against ASUU, if the union fails to reach an agreement and end the eight month strike which it started on March 23.

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