The federal government says it has set up a joint committee to address anomalies complained of by Non-Teaching Staff Unions of Universities as it threatens nationwide strike on February 5.

Sen. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, said this while addressing journalists at the end of a closed-door meeting with federal universities’ non-teaching staff on Tuesday in Abuja.

The non-teaching staff are the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of the Universities and Allied Institutions (NASU).

A Joint Action Committee on NASU and SSANU threatened to go on strike on February 5, to press home its members’ demands.

Their demands included rectifying inconsistencies in the Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System (IPPIS), non-payment of minimum wage arrears, delay in renegotiation with government, NASU, and SSANU 2009 agreement, among other issues.

Mr. Ngige said, “We were satisfied that reasonable progress has been made. It’s a work in progress.

“We have put up a joint committee of the union, representatives of the federal government from the Ministry of Education, Salary, Wages and Income Commission, Office of Accountant-General and the National Universities Commission to work hand-in-hand.

“This is to make sure that all the anomalies that were complained of are treated and we do hope that it will be done to the satisfaction of everybody.

“The FG also has a committee that is supposed to work to formalise all allowances that have been granted the unions in the university system, so that we will have a kind of uniformity in the system as per allowances. The committee will bring its report to us as well as the unions to make their input.” 

He said the issue of autonomy of universities on visitation was also discussed, adding that the visitation panel was already in place.

Mr. Ngige noted that the visitation panel was waiting for the university system to stabilise before its members would audit the universities’ administrative and financial system for 10 years, which is five years each.

However, Peters Adeyemi, NASU’s General Secretary, said, “So far, nothing has been concluded. We don’t have the mandate to talk about suspending the strike. That’s not within our competence. The mandate of our members stands until they ask us to reverse it.” 

(NAN)