The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Lagos zone has described the inclusion of the nation’s ivory towers in the Treasury Single Account (TSA), as disrespectful saying it is an attempt by the Federal Government to underfund public universities.
Addressing newsmen on Wednesday at a briefing held at Lagos State University (LASU) Ojo, Lagos zonal coordinator, Dr. Adesola Nasir pointed out that some time ago, the union had urged the Federal Government to remove universities from the TSA recently adopted by the present administration but the government has refused to listen.
According to him, ASUU without any reservation aligned with the government in its zeal to ensure accountability and transparency in the management of the nation’s resources, however, the union observed that the procedure would introduce heavy encumbrances into the functioning of the universities and may indeed become a burden on the system due to its characteristics.
“We also pointed out the erosion of the University autonomy by the imposition of TSA on universities. We were very categorical that the policy would rob the universities of the opportunity for short, medium and long-time planning in the efforts to deliver on their set objectives”, he said.
The ASUU zonal coordinator noted further that one of the consequences of the failure the union’s call has started to manifest on the system especially in the Federal owned universities such that it has now become the norm for Federal Government through its Ministry of Finance to release less than the amount needed to pay staff salaries on monthly basis.
“We are at a loss on the basis for this affront on the system. This shortfall in personnel cost started around December 2015 and has remained so till date. The consequence is that our universities are now unable to pay staff salaries. Some are paying net salaries which implies that deductions into staff savings are not remitted”, he said.
Nassir also pointed out that another fundamental challenge with the universities is the frustration being encountered in the funding of research by universities, adding that local research funds have become trapped while funds from international funding agencies are also rendered unavailable by certain bottlenecks created by the operations of the policy.
Describing the savings announced by the Federal Government through the operation of TSA which it claimed is running into N1.3 trillion, the ASUU zonal coordinator described this as an act of robbing Peter to pay Paul, stressing that money meant to go for researches and pay staff salaries are what government is saving.
‘For instance at Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), funds administered by the university for certain programme spanning five African countries is trapped.
Similar developments reign at University of Lagos. At this rate, Nigerian Universities and researchers may be blacklisted.
“This development would also frustrate access to international grants”, he said.
He also mentioned the poor funding of state-owned universities, stressing that most of the proprietors of state universities have virtually abdicated the funding responsibilities such that these universities have stopped funding research and meaningful staff development.
“At Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State government has failed to release its counterpart funding of the staff wage bill since May 2015. The same obtains at Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED) under the same Visitor, Governor Ibikunle Amosun”, he said
(culled from today.ng)