From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Federal Government has, again, appealed to members of the striking ASUU to immediately call off their industrial action and return to their students for resumption of academic works in the public universities.
Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, made the appeal, yesterday, while interacting with newsmen in his office after receiving notification letter of his nomination by The Sun Newspaper Publishing Limited for the award of ‘Public Service Icon 2021’.
This was contained in a statement issued by the Ministry’s Acting Head, Press and Public Relations, Patience Onuobia.
The statement quoted Ngige saying the Federal Government remains unrelenting in its efforts towards addressing all the industrial disputes in the university system, involving ASUU and the other unions.
According to him, everything contained in the December 2020 agreement were religiously executed to the extent that the Federal Government aggregately paid N92 billion from the 2021 budget to cover the revitalisation funds and Earned Academic Allowances/Earned Allowances for non-teaching staff.
The minister faulted the demand by the Nigerian Labour Congress for a high-powered panel with requisite mandate to resolve all the disputes within 21 days, saying the president had already put in place his own high-powered team, comprising his Chief of Staff, the Ministers of Labour, Education, Finance, Communication and Digital Economy.
Speaking on the renegotiation of conditions of service of the university lecturers, Ngige maintained that the renegotiation must be guided by the International Labour Organisation principle of ability to pay.
He recalled that the former renegotiation committee, headed by Jubril Munzali, made a proposal of 200 per cent rise in emoluments of university workers, but the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Education, said it cannot pay.
He said the university system and the teaching hospitals consume two thirds of all the emoluments currently paid from the national budget of the country, meaning that an increase for the lecturers would occasion upward review of the salaries of allied professionals in the health sector, based on their different salary structures.
“There is no point giving you percentages on paper that nobody can pay. Munzali worked out a percentage which placed the university workers on about 200 per cent pay rise. The Federal Government, through the Education Ministry, said it cannot pay. The Ministry of Finance said it cannot pay. They came to me and I said nothing is wrong with renegotiation because even if a Collective Bargaining Agreement is signed, it could be renegotiated.
“The document produced by Munzali was not signed by both ASUU and the Federal Government. It is a proposal. Manzali’s committee had elapsed. The education ministry didn’t act as I wanted. The minister was away but his lieutenants didn’t do anything for five months, contrary to my expectations.
The minister has set up another committee, headed by Nimi Briggs. They have been working and I have given them six weeks to come up with a proposal.
On the payment platform for university lecturers, Ngige said NITDA informed him that UTAS proposed by ASUU passed user acceptability test but failed integrity and credibility test, which form the bulwark against hacking.