Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, speaks on the nationwide strike by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), their demand for total reform in the nation’s university system and other welfare issues that have generated controversies, in this interview with CAJETAN MMUTA

Against the backdrop of the ongoing strike by members of ASUU, there have been several meetings to resolve the impasse and many Nigerians have expressed deep concern over the prolonged Federal Government/ASUU renegotiation move. What exactly informed the re-negotiation exercise?

Listen very well because we want to educate people on that issue of renegotiation, it confuses people. There are three legs of ASUU demands. One is for revitalisation fund for the public universities, the second one is what they call earned academic allowances and the third one is the renegotiation of the condition of service.

Two of them are on welfare issues, earned academic allowances for themselves and renegotiation of the condition of services for themselves, and revitalisation. Revitalisation is that they asked the government for a special fund for infrastructure in universities. As you know, a lot of the infrastructures in the universities have been decaying because they are old. Some started by taking grants and did not get enough take-off grants. So, the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan agreed to pay N1.3 trillion from the federal budget for universities’ infrastructure which is revitalisation fund.

They agreed with ASUU that a special fund would be created irrespective of the fact that there is already a pool of funds called Tertiary Education Fund (TETFund) which is made from deduction from money on petrol and the rest of them and paid into a dedicated account and is managed by a special body called TETfund. They also build infrastructures in the universities. If you go to universities you will see some lecture halls marked TETFund, you will even see vehicles or buses marked TETFund as well as hostels with the same TETFund inscriptions on them. That is what TETFund is for.

The revitalisation fund they are talking about is a subsidiary fund running on a parallel plane to TETFund irrespective of whatever TETFund is doing. So, it was created based on what is called NEEDS assessment and a special account called NEEDS account was opened for it with a committee to pursue this. So, Jonathan’s government agreed with them that they would inject N1.3 trillion and that this money would be paid in tranches of N220 billion yearly for six years.

So, the Jonathan government said it would pay N200bn, remaining N1.1trn. They brought money and placed it in that NEEDS account in the CBN to be distributed to universities according to NEEDS that had been assessed. Now, unknown to us, that N200bn they brought was taken from TETFund which is a parallel fund for tertiary education, encompassing universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, because they are all called tertiary institutions.

That N200bn that they placed they started drawing it down from that 2013 according to universities’ needs. So, if you go to the account, you would see the credit to universities at different times, it didn’t go altogether and one thing is that you will retire the one that you have collected before you get a new one. So, you must get this background. In 2016, after we came, ASUU raised issues that the 2014 tranche of N200bn had not been paid, 2015 had not been paid on this revitalisation. We sat and our ex-minister then Kemi Adeosun told ASUU that we don’t have this N200bn.

We paid you for 2014 and 2015 arrears and you gave us government details, and if you remember in 2015, oil, production, and prices collapsed and so our fortune was doomed as a country. There was no issue of how to pay N200bn because even the people who signed the agreement or promise knew that the country was already in trouble. That was why they couldn’t pay 2014 and 2015; that was why the one they paid in 2013 was ‘wayo’ (fraudulent) business, taken from TETFund.

So, we were categorical in telling ASUU the correct position because this is a government of truth. Even though the government is a continuum, we told them we couldn’t pay, we can’t pay that money; we were truthful enough. And we agreed with ASUU to set up a special committee to fashion out ways and means to raise this money apart from the budgetary money. In that committee as a government I empanelled the committee; they went back to the Ministry of education to work because education is the main employer of the university system, not the Ministry of Labour. I am a conciliator but a conciliator can also propose so that both parties can go to work together and actualize any promise made.

But like I said in labour parlance you can renegotiate any agreement made if you are unable to meet your side of the bargain. So, that was what happened there; we put up that committee and they came up with a lot of suggestions. They were inaugurated; they came with a suggestion that we would take money from the stamp duty as a proposal. They also proposed that we would take money from telephone charges, there is a certain percentage dedicated to education.

They also proposed that the private sector be involved because education cannot be left for the government alone. Those were the three proposals; the other two proposals failed because if you remember, on the stamp duty there was a battle between NIPOST, CBN, FIRS, and even the Ministry of Communication over the money on who would collect the charges on stamp duty and of course all of them said the amount would run into trillions but it’s not in trillions. It is in very low billions right now.

On the telephone, they were told by the communication minister that they should not near him because they were not in the communication point for Nigeria that the digital economy of the telephone needs to be upgraded and fine-tuned annually. That one also fell flat, it couldn’t be actualised.

The only one that is alive is partnership with the private sector. And that’s the one we asked that committee to continue fanning up. So, you can see that my conciliation will put ASUU proposal, and the only thing is those proposals were not workable.

We then said as a government that because a government has entered into this agreement to pay you N1.3trillion which they don’t have let’s show you good faith that we believe there’s the need to look for other sources of funding so we would pay you something. So, that first year we paid N25bn to them from the ministry of finance. Then, the second time in 2019 they came back and said the N25bn paid to them was part of the N200bn that was being proposed for 2015. I told them that if they want to say it that way, fine.

What do they want?

They said they want the N200bn paid in tranches. So, the government said you have committed us to pay you N200bn and they said yes and the government has no problem with that but the only thing is that we shall be paying you at and when due and at the availability of funds. So, after that first N25bn, the government paid them revitalization again of N30bn last year.

So, that’s the revitalisation and like I said revitalization is not only on that, TETFund is revitalisation mechanism. So, when they say the government has bridged the agreement, they are talking about an agreement that is not workable, N1.3triillion promised by Jonathan’s administration and for which they paid them nothing in effect because they took money from an education mechanism fund called TETFund and gave to them and said it is going to be revitalization fund.

Whereas that money is still in TETFund it is also used for revitalization. So, the sum guesses there is that they gave to them (ASUU) zero because nobody understands it and a little bit of economic problem. But, the committee is still there working on how they can get private sector engagement, how they can get donor agencies to key in both local and international. So, that’s for that agreement. It’s to be renegotiated and I agree that government cannot pay you that.

So, that’s the sense of the renegotiation headed by Babalakin. The second leg of the renegotiation of the 2009/2010 agreement is their condition of service.

That’s what they call renegotiation of the 2009 agreement; they don’t want to call it renegotiation of our condition of service, our salaries, wages, and allowances accruing to us. Make no mistake about it; I am not opposed to their condition of service being negotiated, I am their supporter. I do not see why a professor should be earning about N400, 000 or N500, 000 after taxes and all that. If they earned it ten years ago and it was sustaining them, it’s not sustainable now.

So, ASUU has a supporter in me on that, not only them in the university system but other people in all the public services, especially, the civil servants. A director in my ministry earns three hundred and something thousand naira. It can’t carry you. There is a need for a total overhaul of the payment system. But the point is that government has its ways of doing things.

That’s why they set up Presidential Committee on Salaries, of which I am a member and the essence is that they gave a term of reference that we shall do a review after the minimum wage. And having done minimum wage, we will introduce what is called minimum wage consequential adjustment on a greater percentage for all the wage structures in the civil service.

Those in CONSS, some of them got 21 per cent rise, some got 16 per cent on their salary. So, ASUU salary, that of JOHESU, and NASU have total consequential agreement movement because of minimum wage.

What is ASUU asking for now?

What ASUU is asking now is their condition of service. In the 2009 agreement, we were there to negotiate it for every five years or so that is in the agreement and I am not against it. We are doing a renegotiation on that. We agreed that a committee in the Ministry of Education is set up, headed by the then Chairman of Pro-Chancellors, Wale Babalakin.

So, they produced a draft agreement for the Ministry of Education to look at and if the minister and the permanent secretary and salary, income, and wages commission look at it and it’s in tandem with sustainable rates and allowances and salary raise, they will bring it up to the Presidential Committee on Salaries.

The Presidential Committee on Salaries will okay it and present it to the Federal Executive Council (FEC). ASUU is saying the draft report whether it is good or bad must signed but the education minister is saying no, I want a review. The only place I also fault the Ministry of Education is that it’s taking a long time to review because that draft report came out in May-June 2021.

But the minister was in hospital in Germany for a long time and the Permanent Secretary was on transit to exit it. Even at that, I told them at the negotiating table that you have no right to keep a draft report for more than three months not to talk about six months.

Again ASUU, I said to them, it’s also your fault that you did an agreement with your employer but you are not knocking on the door every day to ask them what has happened to this draft report, they went to sleep and after sleeping they want it to arise from the Ministry of Labour and you said we breached an agreement; we didn’t breach any agreement because you have no agreement on that condition of service.

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What you have is a draft report of a committee in which ASUU participated. I even advised to go and become a full union with all the paraphernalia of a union because you are registered as one, get a general secretary and an assistant general secretary, employ them as other unions will do.

These are the people who will be going to the education ministry because they say they are intellectuals that they can’t be queuing online to see a director or a deputy director in the ministry. I said you are right then employ another person to do it for you.

So, that’s why I told them since you want to be a union, you want rights of a union, you want gains that accrue to unions like check-up dues and others, but you don’t want to wear the true paraphernalia of unionism. If they had gone to the Ministry of Education by themselves and knocked at every door of the Permanent Secretary, Minister of State (Education), that draft report would have been reviewed internally by the Ministry of Education and sent us a copy and the Presidential Committee on Salaries because the government has the obligation of doing their things. It is with checks and balances the government pushes.

But they didn’t do that. I have also castigated the education ministry and have given them six weeks to round up everything about the draft and send it up to the Presidential Committee on Salaries. That’s where we are on that and we have agreed to that at our last meeting.

So, there’s a silver lining on the horizon for that. That’s the aspect of the 2009 agreement they are talking about is about their condition of service and welfare.

So, any other thing they want a review like their sabbatical, lecturing in some other universities, how many universities can they do extra lecture so that they don’t burn themselves off? But they have painted it to say that the government has refused to sign the 2009 agreement without saying what the agreement is all about.

What is the stand on the earned academic allowances and earned allowances for the university system?

What the name implies, you earn it, you work for it and it comes out. It is not a fixed allowance like hazard allowance or call-duty allowances like a professor on call or a shift duty allowance.

It’s an allowance you earn by doing your work and you have spillover benefits from the work you have done, typical example, if you are a university teacher and you are supposed to teach English 101 or Physics 101, and the number of students you are supposed to teach by university calendar and curriculum is 50 students, if you teach 100 students you will be paid extra for the extra 50 students. It becomes an earned academic allowance. If you do six trips, there is a maximum and minimum number you can do. It’s the same six trips that the number you have done that will be calculated.

This is what you call earned academic allowances. So, the government has paid them a total of N120bn on that allowances since we came starting from 2017 to date, the records were given to ASUU and they saw it. I didn’t know it was up to N120bn, but the Account-General office and the banks produced it and they gave us and ASUU has their own.

So, on the earned academic allowances, they found out that this government hasn’t done badly because the government gave them N25bn in 2017. In short, in 2021 alone, they paid to the university system N40bn in February, for earned academic and earned allowances for other university workers, and out of this ASUU took 75 per cent which is N30bn and other unions protested but we calmed them down.

The remaining was mainstreamed and calculated by the rule of 10.8 per cent of their total personnel cost in the university system and it came to N22.172bn. So, they received N40bn in February and received N22.172bn in November, totalling N52bn and they received another N30bn in 2021 for revitalisation fund.

So, into the university system in 2021 alone, the government has paid N92.172bn. the records are there and it was part of the agreement we reached in 2020 because we keep on doing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and updating it. I told them that there was no need.

The only outstanding in the revitalisation fund of liquidating the N170bn is the one government is supposed to pay you in February 2022. So, they have taken these revelations, new findings, and memorandum to go back and show their people.

What has the Federal Government done on the transparency solution, the cries by ASUU, and issues with IPPIS?

On universities transparency solution, they said IPPIS is amputating their money and the Accountant-General said we cannot put any other thing, we were paying you through this platform which means bring money into the university system and when they finish payment they retire the remaining to us but we discovered that nobody is retiring anything.

Any money we bring is paid even to ghost workers and to lecturers who moonlight in three other universities. Whereas there is an agreement that you can only moonlight in one more university apart from your parent university and some cases, some university workers not only ASUU members were not paying the appropriate taxes to the state government or where the university is domiciled and there is a Joint Tax Law that if there is any shortfall in PAYE taxes (Pay As You Earn) by federal workers in any state, the Federal Government is debiting the money at source. So, two years ago, in 2019, the Federal Government has debited N880bn as default by university lecturers and university workers nationwide, including university teaching doctors and doctors working in the teaching hospitals. What happened?

They connived with the state governments’ tax board and deduct the appropriate fees from them; they paid the extra money and then the Federal Government was penalised.

So, the Minister of Health and the Accountant-General said we won’t have a repeat of this anymore. The IPPIS will deduct this money at the source and give it to the states’ task board. So, that’s what is happening now. That’s why some amputations have resulted.

So, it’s not as if the government is deliberately deducting their money?

No, there are some taxes, even the ones they call cooperative loans that they took that are not deductible but IPPIS is deducting them now, to pay the people at source. Of course, it made their salaries less, they won’t be happy; I don’t blame them and their salaries are not commensurable but we won’t use them because of that and condemn IPPIS.

he IPPIS has its faults, they make some mistakes because of the garbage in and garbage out system, but be that as it may when they said they have designed their own solutions to use in the university system and to pay tax, the Accountant General said no, an employee cannot dictate to an employer how he should be paid. This is true. The labour law provided that premise, it’s done and as when due. He can decide to pay you cash every month; he can decide to pay you with a cheque or decide to do you an electronic transfer.

But, I and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, supported that University Transparency Solutions (UTAS) be given a trial because it’s a homegrown solution. We should encourage our lecturers to do more research and work hard and the government can pay them something. That’s where we are and their system is being tested based on that assertion and agreement.

The President agreed with us, me, and the SGF and that’s why UTAS is being tried. Because they are being tried, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), which is the government’s recognised body that will say what system can enter government’s usage, did what’s called user acceptance test with ASUU; all the bursars from the universities, registrars, and vice-chancellors came and they all looked at it. It is hardware installed for the National Universities Commission (NUC).

They brought out their report and NITDA is not satisfied with the condition of a system that will be deployed immediately. So, they pointed out those areas and we have now agreed to constitute a committee because that was the agreement and that wasn’t what I proposed to ASUU when they wrote a stinker back to NITDA and even attacked their minister and threatened to withdraw his professorship or even withdrew it from Owerri, FUTO; and said it’s an illegal award and they were told that they don’t have right to withdraw any award, that that’s not within their powers as a union.

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It’s the powers of the Senate and from the Senate even to the Governing Board. In the Senate they have contributions, I think two members from the congregation. So, if the Senate has awarded, how do you as a union start trying to bully the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy? And we laughed over it anyway at the negotiating table, we know in warfare people bring out all the weapons and arsenals they have. So, ASUU is bringing out anyone they have.

Unfortunately for them, we told them that their warhead did not hit the target; their warhead passed over without hitting Pantami. So, we now agreed that a joint team is set up. That joint team will work and we are going to get an independent ICT company to join them in the test, especially, in the areas where they faulted NITDA and we expect them to work for three weeks.