We’ve not accepted UTAS as payment platform for lecturers, says FG

The Federal Government says it has not adopted the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) as the payment platform for lecturers.

President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said on Monday that the FG had approved UTAS, which was presented by the union as against the government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

But reacting to this on Thursday at a briefing on ‘Reforms in the Education Sector in Nigeria’ in Abuja, Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said the issue of UTAS was still being deliberated upon.

He said a committee had been set to look into it.

Adamu also said an estimated N2.5 trillion had been invested in tertiary education in the last 10 years, adding that the amount was invested through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).

He said the amount exceed the N1.2 trillion contained in the 2009 agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and still counting.

He added that President Muhammadu Buhari had expended a total of N6,003,947,848,237 in capital and recurrent expenditure in the education sector in the last seven years.

According to him, this is more than any other administration in the history of the nation. Adamu added, “Common knowledge as it were, many Nigerians may not know that the Federal Government is paying the salaries of every staff in its tertiary institutions, academic and non-academic staff, while these institutions are also in full control of their Internally Generated Revenues (IGR).”

He said the unions in tertiary institutions in the country, especially ASUU, had been engaged in recurring and avoidable strikes that had crippled the university system.

He said, “We are doing everything humanly possible to conclude on the negotiations. It is our hope that the outcome of the renegotiations will bring lasting industrial peace to our campuses.

“In the meantime, I am sure that the current efforts would yield the desired results and return our children back to school.”

He also said enormous resources had gone into various categories of training including the PhDs, master’s degrees and related research programmes for personnel of universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education.