The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has asked the Federal Government to pay its members the N35,000 wage award approved for public sector workers to avoid an industrial action.
ASUP President Shammah Kpanja said polytechnic lecturers “are angry and agitating due to economic hardship”.
Kpanja alleged that government had only paid the N35,000 once, despite saying the payment would run for six months.
The government approved the payment of N35,000 to public servants to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal last May.
It started the payment last September with civil servants confirming the payment of the money to them.
Kpanja said: “Government has no reason for not paying that N35,000 wage award. You know when this government came onboard, they introduced some economy policies. One is the removal of subsidy in the price of Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS). This brought about an increase in the prices of goods and services and this affected the condition of living of our members.
“With struggles from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and other stakeholders, the government agreed to pay as palliative the sum of N35,000 as wage award for workers pending when the National Minimum Wage would be implemented in March.
“The agreement was that the wage award would run for six months, effective from September 2023. But as we speak, the government only paid in September, and we are in January 2024. Yet, the government is not saying anything, despite the harsh economic situation.
“Right now, people cannot pay the transport fare to their places of work and the small palliative the government promised to give is not forthcoming.”
The ASUP president also said the government had not implemented the 35 and 25 per cent salary increase for tertiary institutions’ workers.
He said: “The last time the salary of academic workers in polytechnics was increase was in 2010. From that time till now, inflation has eaten deep into what was approved then. The cost of living has gone high and consumer price index has gone high.
“We started the re-negotiation of the 2010 agreement. Along the way, the government stopped the agreement, but later increased the salary of chief lecturers in the polytechnics by 35 per cent while other workers’ salary was increased by 25 per cent. The increments were supposed to take effect from January 2023…”
