By Marie-Therese Nanlong

Jos—Management of the University of Jos has faulted the strike embarked upon the university’s branch of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, saying the action was taken without any reason.

UNIJOS main gate

It would be recalled that the union called its members out on strike last Thursday after forwarding a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Hayward Mafuyai, informing him of the strike, which its described as “total, indefinite and comprehensive.”

The management in a statement issued at the weekend in Jos and signed by the Registrar of the university, Mr. Jilli-Dandam, observed that the letter did not state the reasons for the indefinite strike.

He said: “ASUU, University of Jos branch, had been dialoguing on two issues with management of the university and the issues are the disbursement of Earned Academic Allowance and the payment of Postgraduate Supervision Allowance.

“Council set up a Technical Committee, headed by a former ASUU Chairman to resolve this lingering issue. Council also directed the implementation of the report believing that it will put to rest, the issue of disbursement of Earned Academic Allowance.

“The ASUU University of Jos without notice reported the Management to its National Headquarters alleging that 681 members of ASUU were being owed Earned Academic Allowance.”

“Effort to make ASUU submit the names generated by it for verification and reconciliation were resisted, claiming that the list was contained in the Council Committee’s report.”

“ASUU, University of Jos branch, protested the non-payment of Postgraduate Supervision Allowance from 2004 to 2009 and 2013 to 2014.

“Management drew the attention of ASUU Exco that the matter was being processed as the claims were being forwarded in batches to the Bursar for payment.

“As at the time management met with ASUU executive, nine staff had been paid. As at September 15, 2015, when the Federal Government’s directive on Treasury Single Account, TSA, became effective, an additional 50 of 150 staff had been paid, while 68 had been processed and ready for payment.

“ASUU is aware that for the past six weeks, no federal university or ministerial department in this country had had access to any funds from the Treasury Single Account, TSA, apart from salaries.”

However, Jilli-Dandam maintained that the management had been making efforts to dialogue and resolve all the issues presented by ASUU and would want to assure all stakeholders that it would continue to dialogue with ASUU, with a view to resolving the issues.