ASUU Strike Update: FG To Resume Fresh Negotiations With ASUU On Friday

The Federal Government and representatives of the Academic Staff Union of Universities are said to return to negotiation table on Friday.

News Rain Nigeria gathered that a spokesman for the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Charles Akpan, made this known on Wednesday night.

Recall that ASUU has been on an indefinite strike since March.

FG To Resume Fresh Negotiations With ASUU On Friday

They are protesting against the government’s chosen salary payment platform, the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), and lack of funding for public universities, among other issues.

While the government had insisted on the IPPIS, ASUU on its part insisted on being paid through a platform of their own choosing, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).

The Labour Minister earlier in the week, said the UTAS was currently undergoing an integrity test which will take months.

He also disclosed that even if the software passed integrity, neither the federal government nor ASUU had the money to buy it.

It is, therefore, expected that at the resumed meeting, which would hold at the minister’s conference hall, all the pending issues, chief among them, the contentious payment platform would be trashed out.

Also, recall that the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union had rejected the IPPIS and in its place proposed the University General and Peculiar Personnel and Payroll System (UGPPPS).

Their rejection of IPPS followed complaints that it allegedly caused salary delays and didn’t take into consideration certain peculiarities of the university setting.