• Govt to release N100bn for varsities’ infrastructure as strike continues
Senator Iroegbu and Aisha Wakaso
The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has disclosed that the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may not be met as the federal government lacks the resources to meet them.
This came as indications emerged yesterday that the ongoing strike by ASUU will still linger as both the federal government and the union again failed to reach an agreement in their latest meeting.
However, following the discussions with the striking lecturers yesterday, the federal government’s Needs Assessment Implementation Committee has agreed to release N100 billion for the provision and upgrade of infrastructure in the 61 public universities identified in the Needs Assessment Report.
According to Okonjo-Iweala, who made this known in Minna, the Niger State capital yesterday in a speech at the opening of a two-day meeting of Commissioners of Finance and Accountants-General of states Ministries of Finance, said ASUU’s demands did not fall within the reach of the federal government. She added that there were a lot of things competing for the resources of the government.
“At present, ASUU wants government to pay N92 billion in extra allowances when the resources are not there and when we are working to integrate past increases in pension.
“We need to make choices in this country as we are getting to a stage where recurrent expenditures take the bulk of our resources and people get paid but can do no work.
“At the federal level and in most states, our budgets consist mostly of recurrent expenditures, yet, we continue to have demands for more recurrent spending,” she said.
The minister further said recurrent expenditures accounts for about 77.2 per cent of the total budget, adding that the Ministry of Finance was working to re-balance the ratio and improve the budget formulation process.
She stated that public financial management systems needed to be improved from manual and paper based systems to the 21st century technology, stressing that manual and paper based processes created room for leakages and, therefore, led to inefficiencies in cash management.
The minister further said the country was still suffering from the effect of the 2010 increase in salary asking that “do we want to get to a stage in this country that all the money we earn is used to pay salaries and allowances”.
She declared that if the demands of the university lecturers were met and ‘we continue to pay them salaries and allowances, we will not be able to provide infrastructure in the universities.”
Okonjo-Iweala lamented that Nigeria’s over dependence on oil has resulted in deterioration of the nations non oil tax, noting that in 1970 non oil taxes accounted for 74 per cent of federal government’s revenues but by 2012, it had declined to only 30 per cent of federal government revenues.
“Many states and local governments are also dependent on monthly revenue allocation from the central government. On average only 11 per cent of sub-national revenue was obtained from internally generated sources.
Okonjo-Iweala disclosed that the volume of external and internal debts of the country had been on the increase, saying “In August 2006, when I left office, we had a total of $17.3 billion comprised of $3.5 billion in foreign debt and $13.8 billion in domestic debt.”
She added that “by 2011, when I returned to office, the total debt now stood at $47.9 billion and the domestic debt had now grown to about $42.3 billion.”
The minister, however, said the federal government had taken measures to revamp the economy, adding that these measures have started yielding fruitful dividends in the areas of direct capital investment in the country in establishment of industries and agro-based firms.
Declaring the meeting opened the Vice-President, Namadi Sambo, disclosed that the government White Paper on the Orosanye report on the restructuring of federal ministries and agencies would soon be released.
Represented by the Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamshuddeen Usman, Sambo assured the country that the recurrent expenditure of the country ‘will be trimmed,’ promising that government expenditure in the present fiscal year had been growing just as taxation had been returning high dividends for the government.
Meanwhile, the Governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, who is the Chairman of the Presidential Universities Needs Assessment Committee stated, yesterday after more than three hours of meeting between the lecturers and the government team at the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) that they failed to resolve their differences.
Suswam, however, expressed optimism that the issues would soon be resolved going by the progress made so far, especially with another round of negotiation on Monday.
“Well the meeting continues next week Monday. We made some progress, we had very fruitful discussion with ASUU and we have agreed that we are to meet again on Monday at about 3 p.m. When we meet again, we would be able to arrive at some decisions,” he said.
This was the decision reached after a meeting in Abuja last night at the Benue Governor’s Lodge Asokoro. Details of the meeting were released by the Special Adviser on Media to Benue State Governor, Dr. Cletus Akwaya.
Suswan, who is the Chairman of the Committee, according to the statement, expressed optimism that the strike would be called off soon.
Implementation of the NEEDS report is, however, one of the many demands of the striking union.
The matter on earned allowances would be tackled at the next negotiation meeting next Monday.
“The Technical Committee chaired by Dr Banfa, a nominee of ASUU, had proposed in its report that the N100billion be shared to all the 61 federal and state universities in the country for intervention in the areas of rehabilitation and construction of lecture theaters and lecture halls; renovation and construction of libraries and laboratories and rehabilitation and construction of hostels,” the statement read in part.
“According to Banfa, the 61 universities were categorised into four based on the size of students enrollment saying the categories depended on the university with 30,000 students and above; 20,000 students and above; 15,000 students and 10,000 students and above respectively.”
Each of the universities would then be given its share of the fund to apply in the projects already identified in the needs assessment report for immediate implementation” it added.
“In adopting the report, Suswam said everything would be done to avoid bureaucracy in the award of contracts for the identified projects so that the campuses will immediately witness a new lease of life with the coming on stream of the new projects.”
Suswam disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan had agreed to commence the construction of projects under the N100billion stimulus package in a university to be selected to symbolise the commencement of construction work in all the universities.”
The Implementation Committee meeting was attended by the Ministers of Education Prof. Ruqqayatu Rufa’i and Nyesom Wike, Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu and representatives of other education funding agencies of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), NNPC, PTDF, NITDA, NCC, TetFund and ASUU.