Gbenro Adesina
The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu has expressed displeasure at the incessant strike action in the tertiary institution in Nigeria, emphasising that the Federal Government would find a lasting solutions to the menace.
Adamu stated this today at a meeting he had with the members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics (SSANIP) led by its National President, Comrade Philip Adebanjo Ogunsipe.
According to a statement signed by his Director of Press and Public Relation, Ben Ben Gong, series of strike actions being embarked upon by different unions in the tertiary institutions have done great damage to the nation’s educational advancement.
Appealing to SSANIP to shelve its proposed strike because the government is working assiduously to meet its demands, the minister reiterated that the academic and professional aspirations of Nigerian students have been greatly tampered with, hence, the need to put a permanent stop to industrial actions.
On lingering issues on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), the Ministry’s Director, Tertiary Department, Rakiya Gambo Iilasu revealed that the government was already fine-tuning the payment platform to accommodate the anomalies being experienced.
On the reconstitution of Governing Councils in the Polytechnic and Colleges of Technology for Federal Government owned institutions, she revealed that the government was aware of the expiration of Governing Councils of Federal Polytechnics.
On renegotiation of the 2019 agreement, Gambo revealed that provision has been made in the 2020 Appropriation Act for the Renegotiation Committee to resume sitting.
Gambo further stated that the renegotiation would be reconvened as soon as the Governing Councils in the various polytechnic and colleges of education were inaugurated.
Concerning overhead cost in the federal polytechnics, Gambo said that the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Accounting (PICA) has been given the task of carrying out forensic audit on all allocations to the tertiary institutions with the view of retaining the causes of shortfalls in the system.
On the challenges of state-owned institutions, the Director stated that the institutions are within the purview of their state governments, adding that the federal government could only exercise an advisory role and allow the institutions to negotiate with their various state governments
In his remarks, Ogunsipe urged the Federal Government to urgently attend to the demands of the Union.
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