The Federal Government has announced that it is yet to receive the strike notice issued by the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).
The Ministry of Labour and Employment stated that it was ignorant of the strike threats by the academic union over allegedly being dissatisfied with the sharing formula of the N40bn earned academic allowances.
The allowance was meant for the four university unions.
Earlier, The NAAT President, Ibeji Nwokoma, revealed that the union issued a 14-day strike notice to the FG through a letter dated December 30, 2020, and addressed to the Minister of Labour and Emploment, Chris Ngige.
Nwokoma explained that the strike action anchored on the FG’s allocation of 75 per cent of the earned allowances to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
“We have written to the government that NAAT as a body ought to have been given a specified percentage of the N40bn. You must define it; you can’t just say ASUU, 75 per cent, and others, 25 per cent. Let us know the specific percentage you are giving to NAAT as a union.
READ ALSO: How ASUU strike crippled 20 million people in 2020
“In the MoU we entered with the government on November 18, in item number 2b, we demanded that in sharing the N40bn released, the government should clearly define what is going to be allocated to each union and government agreed to the genuineness of our demands and said NUC (National Universities Commission) and the Federal Ministry of Education will work it out in conjunction with the union and what they had done negated completely the spirit of that MoU,” Nwokoma said.
On the contrary, the spokesman for the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Charles Akpan, said that the Minister, Chris Ngige, was yet to receive the said notice of strike from NAAT.
“We have not received any letter from NAAT; but when we get their letter, we will invite them for a conciliation meeting on the issue,” he stated.
Another top official of the ministry suggested that the members of NAAT should have forwarded their grievances to the Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The official opined that the labour ministry took no part in the sharing of the earned allowances to the unions.
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