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| Entrance of the Plateau State Polytechnic, Jos locked, Tuesday morning by striking workers |
Workers of Plateau State owned tertiary institutions have
shutdown operations over ‘unexplained’ government deductions and other
entitlements.
The institutions began an indefinite
strike, Tuesday demanding among others, ‘immediate’ payment of “Academic
Relief” othetwise known as ‘subventions’ which have allegedly been
withheld since 1999.
Most of the institutions according
to the Chairman, Joint Union of Plateau State Owned Tertiary
Institutions, Mr. Paul Dakogol have survived through Tertiary Trust Fund
(TeTFund) interventions.
“Most of the infrastructures
you see in the State tertiary institutions are funded by Tetfund and not
all the institutions are scheduled to benefit from such interventions,”
he said in a telephone interview.
The union leader was
particularly pained that despite failing to lend support in line with
its “statutory obligation”, government had ‘withheld’ certain
percentages from the institutions’ entitlements, making them hard to
run.
“The implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) is completely unacceptable to us.
“The
centralized revenue system is fine but the deduction of up to 25% from
students’ school fees which are mostly used for the running of the
institutions without any explanation is illegal as far as we know
because we have not seen any letter from the Federal Government
directing such,” Mr. Dakogol said.
Other unexplained
deductions as hinted by another Union leader, Mr. Simji Lompye include
“Recovery” and “cooperative” contributions.
In a
telephone interview, Mr. Lompye said, “Since March 2018, some deductions
have been made from the salaries of workers under the claim of
‘recovery’ and we wonder what they are recovering.
“Aside
of the 25% TSA deductions, as a result of which our students have not
been able to go for excursions for 2years now, the government has also
withheld our cooperative society contributions for months now.
“This
is in addition to the 7% academic staff allowance and 5% peculiar
academic allowances it is supposed to have been paying us as other
tertiary institutions in the country but has failed.”
Mr.
Lompye who is the Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic also
said the government was owing the Union’s retired members 24 months
pension arriers.
The two union leaders however said they
were willing to direct their members to resume work if government would
show some commitment to their demands.
Efforts to speak with relevant government officials on the matter proved abortive as of time of publishing this report.
However,
the Plateau State Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Sonni Tyoden was
said to have summoned an emergency meeting with the Union leaders.
