The Federal Government has promised to address the issues that led to the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic, ASUP.
The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic, ASUP had embarked on an indefinite industrial action on Tuesday 6th April 2020 over what they described as refusal of government to address their demands.
Meanwhile, at a meeting with ASUP Leadership in Abuja,the Minster of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu said some of the issues of dispute were already resolved, stressing that president Muhammadu Buhari had approved the constitution of governing councils for Polytechnics insisting that they would soon be Inaugurated.
For the President of ASUP, Comrade Anderson Ezeibe,the strike was declared inview of the sorry state of public polytechnics, monotechnics as well the general decay in the polytechnic subsector.
He expressed displeasure that the Federal Government has not responded to series of letters written over the matter since the expiration of the union’s ultimatum issued since March 2020.
Comrade Ezeibe listed the twelve-points demands of the union to include non-release of the 10 months arrears of minimum wage owed members in Federal Polytechnics and non-implementation of same in several states own institutions, non-reconstitution of governing councils leading to disruption of administrative processes in polytechnics since May 2020 and victimization of officials of the union in some states own polytechnics.
He reaffirmed the commitment of the union to dialogue with the federal government noting that the strike will continue until their demands were met.
The twelve-points demands include, refusal of the government to release/pay ten (10) months of New Minimum Wage Arrears, refusal to constitute Governing Councils for Federal Polytechnics since the last GCs were dissolved in May of 2020, atttempts by the AGF to steal N19bn from Federal Polytechnic staff salaries to pay unverified and unreconciled taxes that staff have long paid.
Refusal of state governments to fully implement Federal Polytechnic Act 2019 (amended) * and the 65 years retirement age in line with FPA, IPPIS failures to remit funds to 3rd parties like FMB, Cooperatives etc, non-payment of promotion arrears for Federal Polytechnics and annual increments for state polytechnics.
Also on the demands are, refusal to inaugurate National Polytechnic Commission to replace NBTE, stalemated ASUP-FGN (renegotiation) agreement of 2010, non- implementation of the 2014 NEEDS Assessment Report, on release and payment of salaries CONTISS 15 arrears for lower cadre, non-release and payment of salaries in state polytechnics (Abia, Bebue, Cross Rivers, Edo, Ogun, Plateau and the attempts by ARCN to force academic staff in Colleges of Agriculture to leave ASUP.
