EKO HOT BLOG reports that the federal government, on Tuesday, said it could only afford a 23.5 per cent salary increase for all categories of the workforce in federal universities, except for the professorial cadre, which will enjoy a 35 per cent upward review.
This is just as President Muhammadu Buhari warned the government team involved in the negotiation with the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) against signing any agreement, which the government will not be able to implement.
The president also directed the government team to persuade the university lecturers to return to work.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, spoke in Abuja yesterday during a meeting with pro-chancellors and vice chancellors of federal universities on decisions reached by the government to end the ongoing ASUU strike.
Adamu said after a series of meetings with Buhari and the ministers of finance, budget and national planning; labour and productivity; communications and digital economy; and education as well as the director-general of the Budget Office and the chairman of the Salaries and Wages Commission, the Draft Agreement by Nimi Briggs Re-negotiation Team was critically reviewed, and the proposed salary increment considered unrealistic and out of tune with the current realities of the national economy.
He also assured that henceforth, allowances pertaining to ad-hoc duties of academic and non-academic staff shall be paid as and when due by the governing councils of universities to which such services are rendered and to the staff who perform them.
Academic activities have been suspended by ASUU for over 200 days over the alleged failure of the federal government to meet all its demands, which include the conclusion of the process of renegotiating the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), payment of outstanding arrears of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), release of the agreed sum of money for the revitalisation of public universities (federal and states), address proliferation and governance issues in the state universities, settle promotion arrears, release withheld salaries of academics, and pay outstanding third-party deductions.
Adamu also said yesterday that a sum of N150 billion shall be provided for in the 2023 budget as funds for the revitalisation of federal universities, to be disbursed to the institutions in the first quarter of the year, while the sum of N50 billion shall also be provided for in the 2023 budget for the payment of outstanding areas of earned academic allowances, to be paid in the first quarter of the year.
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