Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The federal government yesterday said it had kept faith with all the terms of agreement entered into with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on December 22, 2020.
The government debunked the claim by a member of ASUU that it has failed to keep to the terms of the last agreement it reached with union to end their nine-month-old strike.
ASUU sources had alleged that the union is still awaiting the release of the N40 billion earned allowance the federal government promised, 12 days after it called off the nine-month strike.
It said government has also failed to keep faith with the payment of the withheld salaries of its members that are not enrolled on the controversial Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) after paying two months in December.
However, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, responded yesterday, saying that federal government has so far kept its own side of the bargain.
Ngige, who spoke on telephone with THISDAY, said: There is no breach of the agreement. The federal government has paid N40 billion Earned Allowances to the National Universities Commission (NUC) as agreed”.
Ngige who led the federal government team that negotiated an end to the nine-month-old strike by the university lecturers, also said that the next stage of the implementation of the agreement will be the release of N30 billion revitalisation fund by the end of January.
The leadership of ASUU had agreed to suspend its strike on December 23, 2020, after a new deal with the government team, led by Ngige on December 22 which among other concessions accepted to offset arrears of salaries accumulated during the lecturers’ strike.
