The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has asked Federal Government to release the N35,000 wage award to its members to avoid industrial disputes in the sector.
President of the union, Comrade Shammah S. Kpanja, who said in Abuja while speaking to journalists, noted that members of the union are angry and agitating due to economic hardship.
He further lamented that despite government’s promise that the N35,000 wage award is meant to cushion the effect of the recently removed fuel subsidy, only one month wage award has been paid since September 2023.
Kpanja said, “Government has no reason for not paying that N35,000 wage award. When this government came onboard , they introduced some economy policies. One was the removal of subsidy in the price of Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) and this brought about the increase in prices of goods and services and this affects the condition of living of our members.
“The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and other stakeholders raised concerns and struggled, then government agreed to pay, as palliative, the sum of N35,000 as wage award for workers pending when the national minimum wage will be implemented in March.
“The agreement was that the wage award will run for six months effective from September 2023, but as we speak, government only paid in September and now is January 2024, yet government is not saying anything despite the hash economic situation. Right now, people cannot pay transport to their places of work and the small palliative you promise to give them is not forthcoming.”
On the 35 and 25 percent salary increase, the ASUP president noted that one year after the increment, government is yet to implement it.
He said, “The last time the salary of academic staff in the polytechnics was increased was in 2010 and from that time till now, inflation has eaten deep into what was approved then. The cost of living has gone high, consumer price index has gone high and we have started the re-negotiation of 2010 agreement, along the line, government stopped the agreement but later increased the salary of chief lecturers in the polytechnics by 35 percent while other staff salary was increase by 25 percent and the increments was supposed to take effect from January 2023.
“Now is January 2024, yet government has not implemented that and seriously we are embarrassed and angry with the government. If government has issued a circular that your salary has been increased, the best thing for them to do is to commence implementation but one year after, we still don’t know what is happening.”
The union’s president went on to appeal to the government to urgently address the issues, saying, “We want to inform the government that the tension is high in the sector because members are agitating. We are begging the government to do the needful before it would get out of hand.”
On the issue of third party deduction, Comrade Kpanja described it as unacceptable for government not to remit monies deducted from workers salary. He called on the government to remit all the monies deducted from workers salaries into workers cooperative account.
He said, “You know as civil servants, we have cooperatives in our various division and these cooperatives are ways we save money to help ourselves in one way or the order. Members have made commitment from their salaries that certain amount of money be deducted and put in the cooperative account for the raining day but government, in the month of December, failed to remit such monies deducted from workers’ salaries. Even the checks off were not remitted.
“We are given the government enough time to do the needful because our members are agitating because the economy is biting harder. We are going to call our NEC meeting once this window we are given by the government doesn’t yield any positive result.”
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