STRIKE: FG, ASUU REACH PARTIAL CONSENSUS

STRIKE: FG, ASUU REACH PARTIAL CONSENSUS

The Federal Government and the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities have reached a partial agreement. Dr. Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment, has announced.

Ngige made the announcement at a reconciliation meeting in Abuja aimed at finding ways of resolving the strike which commenced on November 5.

He said, “we have finished our deliberation for today. I am happy to report that we touched some areas of understanding in implementation from the Memorandum of Action which we agreed to in 2017.

“Some of these areas we have substantial compliance and some other areas have not been fully dealt with.

“Like the issue of shortfall in salaries of some Federal University workers and lecturers, ASUU has given a list to the Accountant-General’s Office and we have agreed that by Wednesday that list should be cross-checked by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Auditing.

“So, the Accountant-General’s Office is to get back to us by Wednesday.

“We also have the issue of earned allowances, revitalisation, these are issues of 2009 agreement and partial implementation and we have agreed on the modus operandi to look into the fund situation. This is due to low revenue on the part of government.”

He noted that the meeting had identified one area to look for the fund for the revalidation and that the appropriate government organ would be contacted on the issue.

Ngige said that government was sure to have good information for the striking lecturers.

He said the same situation applied to other allowances, adding: “we have agreed on what we are going to do to make sure that the outstanding amount is handled in a way that all parties will be properly accommodated.

“We also discussed the issue of state universities and agreed also that even if education is on the concurrent list, the universities should be properly funded and staffed so that we do not produce half-baked students from those universities.