EKSU staff protest non-payment of subventions, salary arrears

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By; OLADELE ADEDAYO, Ado-Ekiti.
Staff unions protest grounded activities at the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti, over non-payment of their six-month subventions, salary arrears as well as cooperative deductions among others.
‪The protest affected vehicular and human movement in and out of the institution and its giant gate was under lock and keyed.
‪The unions who participated in the protest include National Association of Academic Technologists (NAT), Non-Accademic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASSUU) among others.
According to them, contrary to the government’s view that the institution’s recent investment in some ventures to shore up its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) has made it capable of taking care of paying salary, emoluments and renumerations, all is not well, as the management has only been able to pay a paltry 20% of the staff’s salary arrears since March this year.
 
They maintained that the management had failed to live up to its responsibilities due to the failure of the state government to pay subventions since January this year.
‪Speaking about their plight, Chairman of SSANU, Mr. Kolapo Olatunde, said “the state government released the universities’ subvention last in December 2015, which means since January,we haven’t been getting the subventions. The government has erroneously believed that the management takes care of the full salary payment without the subvention. But the reality is that we have only been receiving 20% of our salaries since January till date with deductions, and even the deductions were not remitted into the accounts of the cooperative societies on campus.”
‪”We also heard that the state government is not putting EKSU in the agenda of bailout from the federal government given erroneous impression that all is well with us, whereas we have been suffering in silence.
‪Chairman of NAT, Engineer Awogbemi Omobola, attributed the non-payment of the staff’s full salary to the fact that the institution has exhausted all its available resources to pay net salaries of workers.
He said: “The institution has even been struggling to augment the payment of 20% of salary with N250 million monthly from the IGR. We have remained patient with the management because it has been trying, but with this protest, we want to tell Ekiti and the world that they should not allow the institution to collapse as this is the only asset the state has.
‪Mr. Tope Akanmu, the institution’s NASU chairman who itemized their demands, urged the government to resume the payment of monthly subvention to the institution and also include it in the bailout scheme from the federal government.
He lamented that despite series of letters written to the state government prior to the last convocation in June, nothing has been done to alleviate the suffering of the institution’s staff.

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