Ngige: We Don’t Have Money To Satisfy ASUU’s Demands

The Federal Government has declared that it does not have the funds to fulfill the agreement it entered into with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said this on Thursday during an interview on Channels Television.

He said the government is now considering renegotiating the terms of the agreement with ASUU to ensure that the ongoing strike comes to an end.

“The government now says ‘we don’t have the money to pay it.’ This was the agreement between 2016 and 2017.

“Unless you want us to go and take money from TETFUND and deceive you as it was done in that period, and place it for you on the table,” he said.

Speaking on when the disagreement between ASUU and the FG would end, Ngige said he hoped ASUU would do the right thing and contact their members on the renegotiations that have been made in the last two weeks.

“First, the issue of earned academic allowances, we have agreed, giving a timeline to the NUC to go back to the old template used in working out the 2021 earned academic allowance – 10.8 percent of personnel cost.

“We want them to go back very quickly and use that same formula and get us what we are supposed to pay in 2022. That is agreed by everybody,” he said.