LAUTECH workers on strike over non-payment of 13 months salaries

Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State

AGGRIEVED workers of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) Ogbomoso yesterday began an indefinite strike following the failure of both Oyo and Osun State governments to pay their salaries running to 13 months.

The workers, under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities ( ASUU) LAUTECH chapter, in a letter by their Chairman and Secretary respectively, Dr. Oyeleke O. O. and Dr. Olaniran O. A. said various efforts by the body to make the management see reason have failed.

Subsequently, the union resolved to go on strike while accusing the two owner-states of abdicating their responsibility by not providing the expected funding for the university whether recurrent or capital.

“ In the past five years, the only capital projects in the university were those got from TETFUND and special intervention funds. Payment of salaries through Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is not a substitute to the normal and expected subvention that should come from owner states.

“ Between the two states (Oyo and Osun), a lumpsome amount of 13 months salaries have not been given to the university, which is now left with using IGR to pay workers. How sustainable this will be, is the question agitating the minds of workers in the university drawn majorly from the two states.”

The workers insisted that a situation where the university administration uses the IGR for salary payment was unacceptable and unsustainable.

“It portends a serious danger to the university. The trend of owning a university without the readiness to pay salaries is a negation of the existence of education as a social service to the
people,” it stated.

The union expressed dismay that the promise made on December 12, 2012 by the two governors to spend necessary money at LAUTECH to turn it into a model University among its peers was not fulfilled, saying the objective has been defeated.

The union frowned at a situation where civil servants were paid while LAUTECH workers are left out.