By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan.
Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Idowu Olayinka had declared that the institution needs N1.8 billion annually for its running but receives about N150 million only from the Federal Government.
Professor Olayinka said this while speaking on the on-going strike by the non-academic staff of the institution and urged Federal Government to consider University of Ibadan for special intervention fund to enable the institution “meet its mandate of teaching and research effectively”.
The Vice Chancellor pointed out that funding University of Ibadan for research will be of great benefit to the country, asserting that the university can proffer solutions to most of the problems facing the country “if it is funded adequately and patronized by government for policy inclined researches”.
Professor Olayinka while acknowledging with gratitude, the receipt of N422million shortfall of salary arrears from the Federal Government for January through April this year, pleaded with the Federal Government to pay all outstanding shortfalls owed university of Ibadan to guarantee peace and enhance productivity among its staff.
The Vice Chancellor pointed out that his administration has been transparent about the true state of the institutions’ finances, saying, while University of Ibadan needed about N880 million monthly it receives only N782 million from the Federal Government, for the payment of staff salaries.
“From January till date, the Federal Government has been giving us N782 million monthly faithfully whereas we need about N880 million. So we have a shortfall of almost N100 million monthly. Of course this can fluctuate slightly monthly depending on whether some members of staff have proceeded on leave of absence or some others had just returned from such leave,” he said.
Professor Olayinka added “as soon as the money comes, we hold meeting with the four staff unions in the institution as well as the leader of the various cooperative societies in the interest of transparency and accountability. So if what we needed was N880 million and we got N782 million, it translates to about 90 per cent and this was what we have been paying to each member of staff across the board”
The Vice Chancellor however appealed to the striking members of staff of the University to return to work while the management of the institution will continue to engage all lawful means to ensure that the outstanding shortfalls are released by government for payment.
“The overhead cost that we receive from the Federal Government in a year for running the institution can barely last us for a month. We need to pay for electricity, diesel, internet bandwidth, pay our external examiners, maintain buildings, fuel official vehicles, among other items of expenditure. These are what we use our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to execute”.
Professor Olayinka added “when we went to defend our budget for year 2016 at the National Assembly, they informed us categorically that it would be difficult to increase the overhead cost because government revenue was dwindling. We were asked to look inwards. They promised to increase the personnel cost to pay salaries. We will continue to use our contacts and networks to appeal to government to see how they can assist the University of Ibadan. We love our staff to be happy in order to enhance productivity. I am appealing to the non-teaching staff to go back to work while we await payment of the outstanding shortfalls from the Federal Government.
“We will continue to dialogue with the non-teaching staff unions formally and informally towards resolving the impasse. The Governing Council is meeting this week. We will give a report to the Council on the State of the University because the Governing Council legally is our employer.”
