‘Only an all inclusive needs assessment will save our universities’

SSANU recently had a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting where it commended the Federal Government for the release of N30bn for settlement of ‘earned allowances’ but stressed that the amount fell short of expectation.As far as ‘earned allowance’ is concerned, I think some universities did well in the ratio of sharing it and giving it […]

SSANU recently had a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting where it commended the Federal Government for the release of N30bn for settlement of ‘earned allowances’ but stressed that the amount fell short of expectation.
As far as ‘earned allowance’ is concerned, I think some universities did well in the ratio of sharing it and giving it to staff. But there are still some universities that have not even touched the money, not even one kobo has been given to their staff.  For example, Michael Opkara University of Agriculture Umudike till today as I am talking to you, the vice chancellor of that school has not disbursed a kobo of that money and it is more than three months since his own allocation came to him and nobody has asked why he had not disbursed the money to staff. In all, it is very evident and clear that the money, N30 billion was not able to cover July 2009 to December 2013. More money is still required. Federal Government should expedite action in releasing the promised N10 billion to universities to see how far it will go.  We are also demanding that governing councils should start the implementation of payment of earned allowances from month to month, beginning January 2014.
You have opposed the outcome of the needs assessment committee on universities; why so?
I will like to clear one impression, SSANU is not against needs assessment of universities; in fact we support a performance assessment of both state and federal universities for us to be able to find out the remote causes of the decay in the system. We never opposed it, but what we oppose is the composition of the committee that went and assessed the universities.
A situation where one union alone made up the members of that committee went to various universities to bring report, to bring facts or in this case, fiction because to us what they presented in that report is not fact. You cannot use one union out of four in the universities that are made up of intelligent professionals. For example my union has lawyers, engineers, administrators, statisticians, accountants, public relations officers, accredited and chartered in their various professions and you think these people cannot be part of assessment of universities based on their experience, their professions and positions in the universities?
You feel that somebody who handles chalk can tell you about all the problems of the universities when in fact they are the cause of the problems in the universities. Who forms the bulk of the management of the universities? Is it not the teachers who have mismanaged the universities? Going by the reports of accreditation of various universities in Nigeria, why is it that these accreditation reports are not being implemented? Many of the reports indicted the management of the universities and they were put under the carpet and nobody even saw the implementation of most of the reports. There is corruption in the system.
Please explain your claims that there is corruption in the university system.
There is corruption in the university system…so many vice chancellors have embezzled money and have been indicted in various visitation reports, what has Federal Government done? We are talking about decay, what are the reasons for decay, what have we done about decay?
How far have the vice chancellors and university management judiciously managed the funds sent to them as capital grants? My own view of the assessment is that we would have looked at Nigerian universities from the past 15 years; how much has been sent to University A? How much of the capital grant has been put into use? How much has been embezzled and who embezzled it?
Then if there is no embezzlement, it means that there is a shortfall in the required amount for capital grant to develop that university; it would be known that there was a clean usage of funds sent to that university. But if actually the quantum of money that was sent to the university was enough to provide adequate facilities to a level, then something happened to the money that was sent and that was why we were excluded.
That is why we say there is corruption; if government wants to prove me wrong let us go and do that assessment for the past 15 years, because it is only the statistics that is going to prove me wrong. The statistics will guide us in future funding of the universities and proper management of such funds.
SSANU has consistently opposed the implementation of the Integrated Personnel Payment Information System (IPPIS) for universities, what is the reason for that?
Our opposition to it is very clear, central payment system has not worked in Nigeria. For over four years now, the Federal Government paid monetisation arrears to the universities, till today, a very large number of our members has not received one kobo and we have gone to Abuja, gone to Accountant General’s office, we have petitioned minister of education and nothing has come out of it. The reason was clearly because it was paid centrally.
We also asked, is there any country in the world where public universities are paid from one source, nobody could provide the answer; they said no. There was an interactive session we had and we asked that question at the office of the association of vice chancellors of Nigerian universities, the Director of IPPIS, Nana Fatima was there, we asked why should Nigerian universities be the first to start it, we also asked the level of accuracy of the software. Those they have implemented, there are problems.

What is the solution?
Let me tell you, salaries are no longer enough for our people, my union and other unions have established cooperative societies, they have welfare schemes and members take loans at much reduced interest rates. There are no banks in Nigeria that will give loans today at less than 21 percent interest rate; no bank will give it to you. But cooperative society can give you up to N4 million at only 10 percent.
No bank can give it to you. If IPPIS cannot guarantee the deduction and remittance of this to the cooperative society, then why are we subscribing? Many branches have taken up to N500 million loan from banks, the only collateral is salary which is to be paid into the account of the bank, deductions are made on monthly basis, if such deductions are not made, how will our members survive? Even payment of school fees and house rents are done through these sources.
Our members are building houses through these loans that we take, at times from the banks at reduced interest rates. We have not been assured of accurate deductions and remittance to the banks and the cooperative societies. If there is a problem for example with a staff living in Lagos, he has to run down to Abuja and you can see what is happening to pensioners in the said central payment system.
Pensioners are coming and sleeping in Abuja, some are in the Eagle Square begging, saying they have been here for three weeks to settle their pension and there is no money to eat; is that what you want to turn the university workers to, both teaching and non-teaching staff?
The 2009 agreement between you and the government has caused problems and it is ‘overdue’ for renegotiation already, how are you tackling the issue?
The agreement itself is not creating problems; it is the refusal to implement the agreement by government that is causing the problem. The terms are clear, it is just for the Federal Government to agree to implement as specified in the agreement. The agreement itself specified that it shall be renewed every three years; till today, government has not set up a committee to review that agreement. The onus lies on government to appoint a review committee, unions are always ready. If they appoint a committee, they should notify unions, our own team will appoint our members that will renegotiate with the government team.
There seems to be a controversy surrounding ownership of university staff schools. What is it about?
In the circular for 2014 budget, government directed that staff school should be removed from the central budget of the universities, which violates the 2009 agreement because in the agreement, staff school appeared as a demonstration school for the faculties of education; that is how it is. SSANU wrote directly to Mr. President on this issue. So our National Executive Council in this meeting has decided to declare a trade dispute.
What is the history of the staff schools?
From the inception of first generation universities, staff schools have been part of the universities; workers of staff schools are interviewed and employed like any other staff in the university. They are all employed by council, appointment letter communicated to them and signed by registrar who is secretary of council. By 1999-2001 negotiation, the staff school was there, nobody tampered with it. It remained part and parcel of the university central budget, by 2007-2009 renegotiations, staff schools remained the same in all the agreement of the four university based unions.