The Federal Government on Wednesday met with ASUU in Abuja to talk about the Universities lecturers’ demands which have been lingering since 2009.
When he spoke with newsmen at the end of a conciliation meeting between the government and the union, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said the warning strike would be truncated soon
Mr Ngige said the meeting agreed on many issues and a timeline was scheduled for the implementation of the agreements. He also mentioned that ASUU agreed to return to their members with the offer made by the government and the union would get back to them before the weeks runs out.
Newsdigest reported that the Minister noted that many of the items in the 2020 Memorandum of Action (MOA), had been dealt with exhaustively, while some were being addressed.
“We have only one or two areas that are new. One of the new areas is the renegotiation of the Conditions of Service, which is called the `2009 Agreement’.
“An agreement was reached in 2009 that their Conditions of Service would be reviewed every five years. It was done in 2014.
“We started one in which the former UNILAG Pro- Chancellor, Wale Babalakin (SAN), was chairing the committee.
“’After Babalakin, Prof. Manzali was in charge and the committee came up with a draft document, proposed by the Federal Ministry of Education and ASUU.
“Today, Manzali’s committee has become defunct because many of the people in the committee are no longer pro-chancellors,’’ the minister explained.
Mr Ngige said that a new team had been constituted to take a second look at that document.
“This is to make sure that some of the allowances are not against the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) fixed rates for wages and allowances.
“If you propose allowances that do not comply with NSIWC rates, the government will not be able accept it.
“So, it is important that they do the right thing from the beginning so that whatever the committee presents can be approved by the Federal Executive Council,’’ he said.
Mr Ngige also said that the meeting fixed a timeline of six weeks for the new committee set up by the education ministry to round up everything on the Conditions of Service.
