The federal government said Wednesday that the two-week warning strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is illegal.
Addressing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja, Minister of Labour and Employment Senator Chris Ngige said employees cannot dictate to employers.
He said ASUU failed to give the mandatory notice to the government before embarking on strike contrary to the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention.
“They didn’t give us the mandatory notice before going on strike. So for a start, this strike is illegal. They said it is a warning strike but there is nothing like warning strike. A strike is withdrawal of services for which you are being paid. Then the question will arise, if you don’t go to work, do you want to be paid? Is it not corruption? So this is the dilemma,” he said.
The minister said ASUU agreed with the government that leakages and corruption should be tackled but the peculiarities of their profession prevent them from embracing Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) which the federal government introduced in 2018.
He said the union has men of integrity and that they would see reason why the IPPIS policy was necessary, stressing that government had agreed to merge both IPPIS and University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to take care of ASUU’s peculiarity.“Government has consistently made it clear that based on peculiarities IPPIS can capture you. The only thing IPPIS does is that it doesn’t allow you to take double salary. It won’t also pay a BVN two times.
That is it.“If you go on sabbatical, this is government’s position, what you should receive in that other place is an allowance. And allowance has a different portal, that is the portal that doctors are using. You know that medical consultants have an arrangement by which they are employed at the universities as Lecturer 1, 2 until they ascend to become professors but hospitals are paying them allowances for clinical duties being done, teaching of medical students, surgical operations, consultations in clinics if you are a physician.
” These allowances are captured but IPPIS will not capture two salaries for one person.“And government also said that sabbatical is always after seven years so there is no frequency for one person on sabbatical.Now we are on the same page because they say they want to help fight corruption and weed away ghost workers and and they said they have developed a University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).
“To solve the dilemma I have invited them to the meeting for tomorrow (Thursday). I have invited the minister of education, their principal employer, the finance ministry and the accountant general of the federation. “We will meet and discuss the way forward because no employee is empowered to dictate his employer on how he or she should be paid. There is an ILO convention on it.
“The important thing is that you receive your compensation for services rendered or work done as at when due. So, we hope to solve the problems. ASUU are Nigerians, they are patriotic but tomorrow we hope to engage them,” he said.