By Cross Udo, Abuja
The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) has warned the federal government not to favour any particular union in the disbursement of the recently approved N50bn Earned Allowances to avoid a crisis that could jeopardise industrial harmony in the nation’s ivory towers.
SSANU also told the government to release the N50bn to universities, not unions.
Recall that the Federal Government announced that it has released N50bn in Earned Allowances to be shared among university-based unions. Still, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and SSANU have denied receiving such money from the government.
Apart from SSANU and ASUU, other unions expected to benefit from the largesse are the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU).
Sharing formula has always been a problem among the four unions, as the government was previously accused of favouring the academic staff and allocating a bigger chunk of the money to them.
Speaking in an interview in Abuja, the National President of SSANU, Comrade Mohammed Ibrahim, warned that the N50bn Earned Allowances should not be released to any particular union but rather to the universities to be disbursed.
Asked whether there has been any template on how the N50 billion should be disbursed, the SSANU President, who doubles as the Chairman of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) (comprising SSANU and NASU), said that it’s not the business of unions to share money; rather, the universities know how to pay staff.
He said, “Well, I think people should understand that as union leaders, our business with that money is to be paid; we are not in charge of coming up with any template. As a matter of showing seriousness on the part of the government, no union should be given a dime in terms of money going into it, but money should be disbursed to universities.
“Universities are the employers of members of staff, and in each university, every member has their schedule, and our position remains that these universities are the ones that will determine who gets what in terms of schedule and official responsibilities.
“There’s nothing new in paying allowances to workers in the system. But suppose the government continues to say that we are allocating X amount to academic staff and X to other non-teaching staff. In that case, the crisis will continue to brew because that is called segregation. Payment should be determined based on the personnel budget of every university.
“Those monies should be given to the universities. Once they give the universities, they will know who should get what because there have always been committees at the universities’ level disbursing these amounts. So, no union should come up to say that this is what we should be given, or this is the template, that’s not our business.”
Asked whether the money has been released, Comrade Ibrahim said: “We have heard that money has been released, but I think for want of a better word, it should have been told that approval has been granted for its release because when you say you have released something which means it has hit your account.
“So, we have not seen it yet, but we are optimistic because the minister (of Education) did mention it, and we are taking him by his words. The executive secretary of NUC (National University Commission) also confirmed that monies are available for payment but have yet to be received by our members.”
Further asked whether the government stated as usual how the money should be disbursed, the SSANU President said that the circular sent to universities only stated that universities should feed in the NUC with data of who should get what, adding: “These universities are now collating. So, we hope that the money will be released once that is done.”
