The indefinite strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), “might” come to an end soon as the Minister of Education Mallam Adamu Adamu, has said that the Federal Government has granted the release of the N23 billion outstanding Earned Allowances request of ASUU.
He said the money will be released sometime next week and that the Ministry of Finance had already approved the release of the funds but not yet cash backed.
A brief history of the strike:
The indefinite ASUU strike which started on Sunday, August 13, 2017 was announced by the National President of the union, Dr. Biodun Ogunyemi, at a meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) of ASUU in Abuja. He said the reason for the strike was because the government failed to fully implement the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Some of the primary issues highlighted were non-payment of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), removal of Universal Staff Schools from funding by government among others.
While briefing the Senate Committee on Tertiary Education and the Tertiary Education Fund (TETFUND), on the negotiation with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Adamu said:
“They asked for N23billion to be paid but we said the condition for that N23billion to be released was for them to account for the N30billion they had taken, which is a total of N53billion and they were not able to account for it.
“The Minister of Finance undertook to do the audit from the ministry. We agreed that the result will be known in 6 months. During the 6 months, government undertook to be paying them N1.5billion each month during the time they are waiting for this.
“Probably by Monday, they will be able to receive the cheques and we will do forensic audit on the entire N53billion,” said Adamu.