The non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), has raised concerns over the delay in rollout of palliatives more than two months after it was announced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Chairman NASU FCT Council, Michael Adebola, who spoke at the Council’s quadrennial conference/election in Abuja, also expressed worry over what he described as the unending upward adjustment in the pump prices of petrol which have moved from the initial increment of N540 to over N617 per litre.
He said: “We are not oblivious to the cries of our members in the FCT council on the high cost of transportation with a resultant effect on the cost of living. We demand that the government of the day work on policies that can alleviate the suffering of the masses through well-packaged palliatives and improved salary structure, and our refineries should be refurbished and be put under good use.”
Adebola who criticised the introduction of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) as a salary payment system, noted that the payment platform has brought inconsistency, ineffectiveness and tears to workers and unions in tertiary institutions.
“The IPPIS which would have been a good system for union dues remittance is ineffective and full of fraudulent activities. There are lots of irregularities and short payments of union dues. A lot of branches in the FCT council are facing pending and unresolved issues with the IPPIS despite all the efforts to ensure corrections. We, therefore, appeal to the government to scrap IPPIS and replace it with a better system of unified payment. A lot of our members’ dues deductions are going to other unions’ accounts due to the mistakes of IPPIS.”
National President of NASU, Hassan Makolo, who lauded the giant stride recorded by the out-gone, however cautioned state governments against reducing the number of work days, as he argued that anything below the prescribed five work days in a week and eight hours per day of work by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), could affect national productivity adversely, and even lead to job loss in the nearest future.
Makolo, who also faulted the practice of working from home, maintained that there was no infrastructure to make that happen in Nigeria especially with the low broadband penetration and epileptic power supply in the country.
“All we know is that workers are expected to work for five days a week and eight hours per day. That ought to be maintained. Now if we reduce the number of workdays that is going to affect productivity negatively.
