BY Emman Ovuakporie

ABUJA— PERMANENT Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Mc John Nwaobiala, has said there is no budgetary provision to settle the arrears owed lecturers of federal polytechnics, who are currently on strike.

The Permanent Secretary made this disclosure  during a meeting with the House of Representatives committee on education to resolve the 10-month old Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, strike.
He said the ministry, however, plans to request for special funds from the President to be able to take care of the about two years arrears.

Nwaobiala also explained that the white paper of the much agitated government visitation panel to federal polytechnics would be released “between this week and next week.”
Members of ASUP have been on strike since October last year after it had earlier embarked on a three-month strike in April last year, calling on the government to meet certain demands.

The initial 13-point demands of ASUP were later reduced to four following series of meetings with government.
The four demands are upgrading the lower cadre polytechnic staff to CONTISS 15, release of white paper on visitation panel, constitution of governing councils for polytechnics and setting up a NEEDS assessment committee.

Government, however, met two of the demands earlier this year, which are the NEEDS assessment committee and the constitution of the governing councils.