The Ministry of Education has claimed that it is yet to pay polytechnic lecturers in the country because of lack of funds.
Speaking through the Permanent Secretary, Mc-John Nwaobiala during a meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on Education to resolve the ten-month-old ASUP strike yesterday, the ministry, however, planned to make a request for special funds from the presidency to be able to take care of the about two years’ arrears of the lecturers.
About 13 percent of the 2014 budget under the ‘Service-Wide Vote’ arrangement is to be spent by President Goodluck Jonathan, besides the statutory vote for the State House.
Nwaobiala disclosed that the white paper of the much-agitated government visitation pane to federal polytechnics would be released “between this week and next week.”
Members of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, have been on strike since October last year, after it had earlier embarked on a threemonth strike in April 2013, calling on the government to meet certain demands.
The initial 13-point demands of ASUP were later reduced to four, following series of meetings with government.
The four demands are upgrading the lower cadre polytechnic staff to CONTISS 15, release of white paper on visitation panel, constitution of governing councils for polytechnics and setting up a NEEDS assessment committee.
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