University lecturers yesterday won a major battle against the federal government.
The government granted their request that their N23billion outstanding Earned Allowances be released.
The money will be released next week, Minister of Education Adamu Adamu said.
The government said the Nigerian Universities Pension Management Company matter would be resolved with the Pension Commission in the next one week.
But he reiterated the refusal of the government to exempt the federal universities from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) system
Adamu gave an insight into the negotiation with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) during a meeting with the Senate Committee on Tertiary Education and the Tertiary Education Fund (TETFUND).
The minister said the Ministry of Finance had promised to undertake a forensic audit of the N30billion allowance earlier released to the lecturers, bringing the total to N53billion.
Adamu said: “They (lecturers) asked for N23billion to be paid. But we said the condition for that N23billion to be released was for them to account for the N30billion they had taken, which is a total of N53billion. And they were not able to account for it.
“The Minister of Finance undertook to do the audit from the ministry. We agreed that the result will be known in six months. During the six months, government undertook to be paying them N1.5billion each month during the time they are waiting for this.”
The minister added that the Ministry of Finance had already approved the release of the funds but not yet cash backed.
“Probably by Monday, they will be able to receive the cheque. And we will do forensic audit on the entire N53billion,” Adamu said
ASUU declared an indefinite strike last weekend over Federal Government’s failure to fulfill the 2009/2013 agreement with the union.
The issues in the agreement are: funding for the revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowances, registration of Nigerian Universities Pension Management Company, university staff school, fictionalisation and non-payment of salaries among others.
On the TSA exemption request, he said: “There are other issues which we didn’t agree. And that was their request to be taken out of TSA. I told them that it is not possible because this is a new policy and government is not going to change it for anyone.”
On the non-payment of salaries, Adamu attributed it to the decision of federal universities to illegally recruit staff without recourse to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
The situation, he said, had partially affected the government’s effort to eliminate thousands of ghost workers through thorough personnel verification and salary payment process.
Adamu said: “For instance, a university can just decide to recruit 50 people. And IPPIS is not aware. So, what they are going to get is they are going to get the money they got last month. And it will not be sufficient for them. They normally spread it among the entire staff. Let’s say they pay 70 per cent to 80 per cent but that is their fault. So, institutions, we said, must now stop doing that. And they accepted.”
The chairman of the committee, Jibrin Barau, expressed confidence that the minister would resolve the issues with the striking lecturers as soon as possible.
