From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), has reportedly withdrawn the accreditation of Abia State Polytechnic, Aba over non-payment of staff salaries and allowances for over 30 months.
The Head, Media Department, NBTE, Fatima Abubakar, was reported to have issued a statement in this regard in Kaduna yesterday.
Abubakar said that the accreditation was withdrawn because the polytechnic had not shown any commitment to offset the arrears and ensure regular payment of salaries.
Explaining regular payment of salary as one of the key components of the board’s normative instruments for quality assurance in the Polytechnics and other related institutions, Abubakar said the board had drawn the attention of the polytechnic’s management to the dangers inherent in non-payment of salaries.
She said the state government having failed to remedy the situation in the institution, the board had no choice than to withdraw the accreditation status of the polytechnic to safeguard the quality assurance mechanism of the board.
Abubakar said the board had written to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), not to mobilise any graduate of the polytechnic for its national service until the institution remedies the problem.
She assured that the NBTE would notify the NYSC when the accreditation status was restored.
Efforts to reach the state Commisisoner for Information and Strategy, Eze Chikamnanyo, could not yield any result as he could not respond to text messages sent to his phone.