SSANU, NASU Reject UTAS, Propose Separate Payment Platform – Ngige

NOVEMBER 12, 2020 

The Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Universities (SSANU) have kicked against the payment platform proposed by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, disclosed this on Thursday while addressing journalists at the National Assembly complex in Abuja.

“There are other unions in the university system that are saying they will develop their own system, and that they are not going to go on to UTAS – Senior Staff Association of Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), … ASUU is not the only union in the university,” he told the press after defending the budget of his ministry in the Senate.

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Ngige stressed that the government was making effort to meet up with ASUU’s demands but warned against the use of different payment platforms in Nigerian universities.

He stressed that it was important for the government to ensure that the concerns of SSANU, NASU, NAAT, and others were addressed while working to ensure the return of the lecturers to the classroom.

The minister, however, hinted that the payment system proposed by ASUU had been forwarded to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for assessment.

He said, “If we ignore those people and what they are saying, even if ASUU calls off the strike, they will close the lecture halls, they will close the laboratories, they will close even the gates.

“It has happened before, entry gates into the universities; we don’t want that to happen. That is why we are taking them holistically and going in measure steps to be sure that we carry everybody along.”

As part of its conditions to call-off the almost seven months strike, ASUU had asked the Federal Government to adopt the University Transparency Account System (UTAS), rather than the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), for the payment of lecturers’ salaries and allowances.