After weeks of negotiations and foot-dragging , the Federal Government on Friday accepted the demand by the Academic Staff Union of Universities that they be exempted from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System .
The government also shifted grounds on a number of issues , including the insistence that all the academic staff of the federal universities must be paid through the IPPIS platform .
Reading out the communique at the end of a seven – hour negotiation with ASUU members in Abuja, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige , said the government also agreed to ASUU ’ s demand to pay their members ’ salary arrears from February to June through the old salary payment platform , Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System .
He stated, “ We are also reviewing how the lecturers will be paid on the old platform until UTAS is ready for usage .
“ We agreed also that the withheld salaries are the component of the issue of ‘ no work, no pay ’ that was invoked and the Minister of Education and myself are working on that to get approval for the lifting of the embargo .
“ This is a transition period between the formalization of UTAS , and as soon as we finish this , the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation , the National Universities Commission and the Vice Chancellors are to work together to make sure that the withheld salaries are paid through the old platform , which the Accountant General ’ s office used in paying the salaries of university workers that were not captured on IPPIs for the months of February , March , April, May and June . ”
The government also offered to raise the Earned Allowances to university staff from N 30 bn to N 35 bn and the revitalization fund from N20 bn to N25 bn.
The breakthrough in negotiations is expected to end the eight – month strike embarked on by the university lecturers .
Credit: School Nigeria
