The strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, may soon come to an end following the federal government’s decision to grant the lecturers some of their demands.
Key among the demands is that they should be exempted from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, and the government has granted that.
The new development was announced on Friday by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, after a meeting between the federal government and ASUU in Abuja.
He stated that the government had also resolved to pay the aggrieved lecturers their salary arrears from February to June, using the old payment platform of Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System.
That, Ngige said, was pending when the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, which the lecturer insisted should be used instead of IPPIS would be ready.
Said the minister: “We are also reviewing how the lecturers will be paid on the old platform until UTAS is ready for usage.
“We agreed also that the withheld salaries are the component of the issue of ‘no work, no pay’ that was invoked and the Minister of Education and myself are working on that to get approval for the lifting of the embargo.
“This is a transition period between the formalisation of UTAS, and as soon as we finish this, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, the National Universities Commission and the Vice Chancellors are to work together to make sure that the withheld salaries are paid through the old platform, which the Accountant General’s office used in paying the salaries of university workers that were not captured on IPPIs for the months of February, March, April, May and June.”
At the meeting which lasted about seven hours, the federal government resolved to increase the Earned Allowances to university staff from N30 billion to N35 billion.
The revitalisation fund was also increased from N20 billion to N25 billion.
