The federal government has promised the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) who are presently on strike that work on the review of their conditions of service would be concluded in the next six weeks.
The federal government also said it has set up a joint committee to carry out an integrity test on ASUU’s salary payment software platform, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) and would submit its report within three weeks.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, speaking on the discussions between the government’s team and ASUU leadership in Abuja, said both sides agreed that ASUU would take the new proposals by the government to its members with a view to getting them to resume work.
When asked about the outcome of the meeting, Ngige said: “We have agreed on many of the things and put timelines on them and we are supposed to get back to them and show them government’s offers and government’s implementation of a lot of things in the 2020 MoU. A lot of them are works in progress.
“We just have one or two areas that are due and that is the condition of service negotiation which is contained in the 2009 agreement. It is an agreement that says the condition of service is to be renegotiated every five years.”
Ngige said the last time negotiations on the condition of service was carried out was in 2014, adding that the process for the next one was initiated when the present administration came into office in 2015.
According to Ngige, a draft document has been produced by the committee charged with the task.
He explained that the Federal Ministry of Education also set up an internal team to look into the committee’s recommendations and try and get input from ASUU.
According to him, some allowances proposed in the document was not in line with what the Incomes, Salaries and Wages Commission had fixed, adding that if it was forwarded to the government, it would be rejected.
Ngige also said the committee set up by the Federal Ministry of Education was given a six weeks timeline to conclude its work and submit its report.
On the issue of the ASUU’s salary payment software platform, UTAS, the minister said a joint committee of ASUU and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) was set up to carry out an integrity test on the software.
He said the government plans to get neutral experts on IT to join in the integrity test for UTAS, adding that a timeline of March 8, was set for the conclusion of the integrity test.
Ngige further intimated that as far as he was concerned, the government was on course in implementing the agreement, saying that ASUU should take what has been offered to its members for them to call off the strike.
He said that the proposal containing all the issues agreed on would be given to ASUU by Wednesday (today) to take to their members.
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