FG promises N22bn earned allowance, ASUU to represent UTAS

The Federal Government has assured that N22bn earned allowance captured in the 2021 supplementary budget will soon be accessed by the university workers.

The government also said it paid since January N30b as the University Revitalisation Fund as contained in the Memorandum of Action with the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

Speaking on Monday after a meeting with ASUU leadership, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said the N22b was apart from the N40bn earned allowance already paid to the university workers.

The minister said the parley evaluated seven key issues, with both parties expressing satisfaction  with the  implementation stages of what he termed “work in progress.”

This was contained in a statement by the Deputy Director, Ministry of labour and employment, Mr Charles Akpan, titled, ‘Meeting with ASUU successful-Ngige.’ 

The minister was quoted to have explained that the National Information Technology Development Agency was directed to expedite action on the integrity test on the University Transparency Accountability Solution which, if successful, would eliminate the challenges posed by the peculiarities of the university system to the current payment platform.

The statement said, “Ngige further said the government has also paid the sum of N30bn as the University Revitalisation Fund as contained in the MOA since January 2021. 

“The money, according to him, is, however, still lodged with the Central Bank of Nigeria, pending the conclusion of the audit report of the implementation committee on the use of previous funds disbursement to universities by the Ministry of Education and the National University Commission.”

On the proliferation of state universities, the statement disclosed that a bill has been sent to the National Assembly by the National University Commission to strengthen its arms in terms of delisting universities where funding and other parameters were inadequate.

The statement added, “The inconsistencies in the IPPIS payment were also discussed. There was good interaction and documents were exchanged between IPPIS and ASUU. ASUU is to go back to its members so that we can have a proper update on the extent of the inconsistencies in payment. Meanwhile, the President of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, told one of our correspondents that the Federal Government had asked the body re-present the University Transparency Solution to the end-users. Osodeke said such was one of the outcomes of the meeting they held on Monday.

Osodeke said, “We trashed out the issues and they told us the ones they are working on and others they put up a team to look at them. On the issue of UTAS, they are organising an assessment of the UTAS by end-users, this will take place next week. Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency is insisting that we have to do a presentation to the end-users. We will invite people from each university to look at it.”