The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, has given an indication of a looming, fresh face-off between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
The union had recently embarked on a week warning strike with a threat to proceed on an indefinite strike if its demands were not met.
A recent meeting called by the Senate also failed to settle the issue of earned allowances.
Ngige told State House correspondents on Wednesday that while government had met seven out of the eight demands of the union, but could not meet the demand for earned allowance worth N284bn.
This, he said, was due to paucity of funds.
He announced that the government had conceded to the union the right to exclude endowment funds that accrued to universities from the Treasury Single Account.
He said while the government agreed to ASUU’s demand to exclude endowment funds from the TSA, that did not mean that universities’ councils would not have right to audit such an account.
“The other aspect of it is the earned allowance. The earned allowance is the only one that is not sorted out now because everybody knows and agrees that we are in a recession.
“If we are in a recession and you are asking us to pay you N284bn, nobody will pay it because the money is not there.
“So, they (ASUU) agreed and the National Assembly also agreed, but the government offered them some amount pending when we finish auditing of the first tranche of money that has been given to them in that same area of earned allowances.
“That tranche of money that they collected is being audited, but the auditing process is very slow because some people for some strange reasons are not allowing auditing to take place. So, a time frame has been fixed of six months within which the auditing will be done.
“Within those six months, government has offered something that they will be paying on a monthly basis and ASUU has also made a counter proposal to government so both parties have gone back to their principals.
“ASUU has a principal which is the national executive body and government has come back to look at our finances viz-a-viz with the National Assembly which will appropriate that particular fund because for 2016, there is nothing in the budget for it. It will be done and appropriated as and when due,” Ngige said.
