The leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities has rejected what it described “award” salary package presented to it at the resumed meeting of the federal government and ASUU over the lingering strike action by the union.
ASUU said pointedly that the major reason given by the federal government for the miserly offer, paucity of revenue, is not tenable.
ASUU president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke in a statement, on Thursday, in Abuja, insisted on the implementation of a special salary scale for university staff known as the University Salary Structure (USS).
He said: “At the resumed meeting of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) 2009 agreement re-negotiation committee, on Tuesday, 16th August 2022, the government team presented an “Award” of a Recommended Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure (CONUASS) prepared by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) to ASUU.
“ASUU firmly rejected and still rejects the ‘Award’,” he said.
The ASUU president revealed that the new draft agreement has other major recommendations for the funding of major components of the renegotiated 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, one of such recommendations is the tax on cellphone and communication lines.
According to him, the federal government imposed the ongoing strike action on ASUU and it has encouraged it to linger because of its provocative indifference, stating that the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement with ASUU between March 2017 and June 2022 has been done in bad faith.
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“This is because of several reasons chief of which is poor management of the economy. This has given rise to leakages in the revenue of governments at all levels. There is wasteful spending, misappropriation of funds, and outright stealing of our collective patrimony. ASUU believes that if the leakages in the management of the country’s resources are stopped, there will be more than enough to meet the nation’s revenue and expenditure targets without borrowing and plunging the country into a debt crisis as is the case now.
“The new draft agreement has other major recommendations for the funding of major components of the renegotiated 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.
“Our prayer: Where there is a will, there will be a way. The federal government, through the ministry of education, should return to the new draft agreement of the 2009 FGN/ASUU renegotiation committee whose work spanned a total of five and half years as a demonstration of good faith,” he said.