ASUU, University of Cross River State (UNICROSS) branch, has called on the Federal Government to deploy the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) and other demands of the union.
This, they said, was to avert the planned indefinite industrial action by ASUU nationwide.
Chairman of the Union in UNICROSS, Dr Patrick Ineji, made the call on Thursday during an interaction with newsmen after a congress of the union in Calabar.
Ineji said that the union has given the Federal Government enough time to implement its demands, adding that no substantive implementation has come forth.
According to him, hundreds of members of the union were owed salaries for over 10 months due to the abnormalities of the Integrated Personal Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
He said that this was the reason the ASUU wanted the deployment of UTAS for payment of their salaries.
He highlighted other demands of the union yet to be implemented to include, the refusal of the Federal Government to sign and implement the 2009 renegotiated agreement with ASUU and revitalisation of public universities.
The ASUU Chairman maintained that UTAS has passed an integrity test and found worthy to be used for payment of salaries for universities lecturers.
“After a congress of the union, we looked at the areas that may cause ASUU to embark on strike if the Federal Government does not do the needful.
“The Federal Government has refused to sign and implement the 2009 renegotiated agreement with ASUU.
“The Federal Government forced ASUU into IPPIS with all the abnormalities that followed the exercise and refused to deploy UTAS that is a better option to IPPIS,” he said.
He further said that the 2009 Federal Government and ASUU renegotiated agreement includes welfare of universities staff, how the universities should be operated and the scheme of service and others.
Also speaking, Secretary of the Union in UNICROSS, Dr Emeka Ategwu, said that the union also frowned at the proliferation of universities in Nigeria by some state governments.
According to him, the current universities were lacking infrastructural development and basic amenities, yet some state governments were going ahead to establish more universities.
“What is the need of establishing many universities when the one on ground have not been properly funded.
“Some of the governors are establishing more universities to gain political gains, this is not right because the standard of our educational system is degrading with this kind of proliferation of more Universities”, he said.(NAN)
