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By Gabriel Dike
The Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Polytechnics (SSANIP), on Friday issued the Federal Government one month ultimatum over non-implementation of its demands.
The one month ultimatum to the government was given after a meeting of the General Executive Council (GEC) of SSANIP held on Wednesday, March 30th at Federal Polytechnic Nasarsawa.
In a letter to the Minister of Education, dated April 1st, 2022 and signed by the National Secretary, Hussani Gwandu, SSANIP expressed displeasure at the non-implementation of its demands by the government since 2009.
It read: “We write to once again draw the attention of the Minister of Education to the array of issues severally raised by our union overtime and agreements reached without implementation.”
The union recalled that its embarked on a warning strike in January 2021 as a means to to express its grievances on government refusal to pay the needed attention to the education sector, especially the polytechnics and colleges of technology.
SSANIP listed its demands to include non-release of the scheme of service, non-release of approved #15billion revitalization fund, inadequate funding of the polytechnic sector, non-release of arrears of the 2019 minimum wage, non-release of CONTEDISS 15 arrears and other issues.
It added: “It is quite unfortunate that despite several meetings initiated by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, with representatives of the office of the Head of Service, Ministry of Education, office of the Accountant General of the Federation and National Income and Wages Commission in attendance, none of the promises made over the issues listed were implemented.
“In view of the above, we hereby call on the government to attend to the issues raised within one month of this notice, starting from today, 1st April, 2022 or our union will be left with no choice than to resume with our earlier suspended strike.”
The communique issued after the 67th GEC meeting, signed by the President, Adebanjo Ogunsipe and the Secretary, Hussani Gwandu, SSANIP called on the Federal Government to ensure prompt release of #15billion revitalization fund to cushion the effect of the huge funding deficit in the polytechnics.
The union frowned at the politics around the payment of the new minimum wage arrears by the government and demanded for immediate payment of the arrears to avoid industrial dispute.
SSANIP also expressed concern over the delay in the release of third party and union check off dues deductions by IPPIS. It urged the immediate release of all the deducted funds to the affected institutions to avoid industrial disharmony.
On the conditions of service, the union called on the government to expedite action in the release of the document for the smooth running of the polytechnic system in the country.
The senior staff union condemned the non-payment of promotion arrears of 2019, 2020 and 2021 in some federal polytechnics as well as salary arrears in some state-owned polytechnics. It called on the affected state government to ensure payment to avert industrial disharmony.
The union further frowned at the sporadic attacks around the country, particularly the recent attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train with 970 passengers on board. It asked the government to justify the huge budgetary allocation to the security sector by fishing out those behind the numerous attacks.
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