Following weeks of negotiations and foot-dragging, the Federal Government has on Friday accepted the demand by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that they be exempted from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
The government also shifted grounds on a number of issues, including the insistence that all the academic staff of the federal universities must be paid through the IPPIS platform.
Reading out the communique at the end of a seven-hour negotiation with ASUU members in Abuja, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, said the government has agreed to ASUU’s demand to pay their members’ salary arrears from February to June through the old salary payment platform, Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System.
The government also offered to raise the Earned Allowances to university staff from N30bn to N35bn or N40bn and the revitalization fund from N20bn to N25bn, making a total of N65bn.
The minister said;
The FG reiterated that her offer of N40bn or N35bn, whichever is accepted by ASUU was for all the universities’ unions. ASUU had proposed that N40bn be paid immediately for all unions.
We are also reviewing how the lecturers will be paid on the old platform (Government Integrated Financial Management Information System) until UTAS (which the lecturers are proposing) is ready for usage.
The breakthrough in negotiations is expected to end the eight-month strike embarked on by the university lecturers.
Read Also: Just In: ASUU Begins Indefinite Strike
The union on March 23 embarked on an indefinite strike over the failure of the Federal Government to keep to the 2019 Memorandum of Action between them as well as disagreement over the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) that ASUU rejected.
Read Also: Strike: FG, ASUU To Resume Meeting On Friday
He described the meeting as a fruitful one, noting that the government has decided to shift grounds on the lingering issues.
The minister revealed that the government and ASUU have also reached an agreement on how to pay the withheld salaries of the lecturers.
