Nigerian govt, varsity workers’ meeting ends in deadlock

Tuesday’s meeting between the Federal Government and the university workers ended in a deadlock.

The workers, who came together under the aegis of Joint Action Committee comprising the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), met the federal government at the Ministry of Labour and Employment headquarters in Abuja.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, led the government’s team while the workers representatives include the SSANU National President, Mohammed Ibrahim and NASU General Secretary, Peters Adeyemi.

At the meeting, the two parties agreed to set up a committee to resolve the workers’ complaints on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Payment System (IPPIS) and the dispute over the sharing formula for the N40 billion earned allowances.

Ngige, who addressed journalists at the end of the meeting, described the deliberations as fruitful.

READ ALSO: Nigerian govt won’t give ASUU opportunity to go on strike again – Ngige

He said: “The deliberations were fruitful, government side responded to issues concerning IPPIS and what is being done to assist university workers, who have had some complaints in that direction, especially some of the allowances they said were chopped off by the IPPIS system.

“We were satisfied that reasonable progress has been made. It’s a work in progress. We have put up a joint Committee of the Union, members of government side from Ministry of Education, Salary, Wages and Income Commission, Office of Accountant-General and the National University Commission to work hand-in-hand to make sure that all the anomalies that were complained about are treated and we do hope that it will be done to the satisfaction of everybody.”

But the NASU official insisted that the issues have not been fully addressed.

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