Kufre George
House of Representatives Broker Peace Between Federal Government and Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU The leadership of House of Representatives recently brokered a meeting between the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.The meeting came after three weeks of deliberations with the union and all the relevant government agencies to resolve the teething issues that necessitated the seven months old strike of the lecturers.Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila who led the principal officers to the meeting, had enquired from the Accountant-General and the National Information Technology Development Agency NITDA if the universities payment systems could be reevaluated.While the Direct-General of National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, said all three payment systems, including the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS; Integration Personnel and Information System, IPPIS and U3PS, failed integrity test and as such could not be relied upon, the Accountant general, Sylvia Okolieaboh, called for a meeting with ASUU to resolve the issues.Also speaking, the NITDA DG said they were waiting for further directive from the government to continue with the testing of the solutions.On his part, the Director General of Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, informed the lawmakers that they were opposed to adopting multiple solutions, stressing that they would be expensive to fund.Reacting, the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, lauded the House leadership for the initiative, encouraging ASUU to stick with IPPIS to address their grievances.He, however, regretted that ASUU hurriedly went on strike when negotiations were still ongoing without his notice, stressing he would not accept the failed systems.However, the president of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, said it was not the first time the government was making a promise of looking into the issues and failed.Quoting the University Miscellaneous Act, the union insisted on the autonomy of the university system, saying Nigeria was the only country where salaries of lecturers were paid through office of the accountant-general.
