The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the unions in Oyo State Government-owned tertiary institutions has appealed to Governor Seyi Makinde to end using a consultant to run the institutions.
Kola Lawal, a member of JAC and chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), The Polytechnic, Ibadan, made the appeal in an interview on Thursday.
Under the aegis of JAC, the academic and non-academic staff of the institutions started a three-day warning strike on Wednesday to press home their demands from the state government.
The institutions include The Polytechnic, Ibadan; The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, Saki; Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic, Eruwa; Oyo State College of Education, Lanlate and Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technology, Igboora.
Mr Lawal said using a consultant had become a financial burden on tertiary institutions. According to him, the consultant collects 10 per cent of the internally generated revenue from all institutions, a huge sum that can be used to meet other statutory needs of the institutions.
He stated, “The consultant takes about N500 million from our system yearly, with the government claiming that it engaged the consultant to manage corruption and embezzlement in the institutions. But, can any management of the institutions embezzle N200 million in a year? Yet, this middleman is there, taking a 10 per cent commission on every revenue generated.
“There is a middleman between us and the government and it has taken away our financial autonomy. Other tertiary institutions in Nigeria have financial autonomy and they are responsible to their governing councils.
“The councils are under the government and it has never been heard anywhere that a financial consultant is employed to oversee any institution. The JAC of all the state-owned tertiary institutions is hereby calling on the government to save our souls and protect us from the activities of the consultant.”
The union leader also called for an end to salary augmentation by institutions from their IGR while stating that the shortage of manpower and casualisation of workers should be addressed.
He called for the regularisation of the appointments of the casual workers in the institutions who, he said, were earning between N30,000 and N60,000 per month.
Mr Lawal said one of the demands was the implementation of a 25/35 per cent salary increment, which had already been enforced in other institutions since January.
He also sought the commencement of the process of constituting the governing councils of all the institutions, which were dissolved about a year ago, and the regularisation of their tenures.
Mr Lawal said the non-constitution of the governing councils had affected the signing of the letters of those who passed the 2023 promotion examinations.
Therefore, he suggested that the education commissioner be made to perform the functions of the governing councils pending their re-constitution.
Mr Lawal noted that 114 days had passed since exhausting all the available mechanisms of resolution without achieving any result, adding that this had necessitated the three-day warning strike that started on Wednesday.
The ASUP chairman said that the unions had no intention of fighting the state government but were only appealing to it to look into their demands.
The three-day warning strike is expected to end on Friday.