The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Plateau State University (PLASU) branch, has queried the administration’s unilateral decision to impose a paltry amount as the mainstream Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) into the salaries of academic staff without reaching an agreement with the union.

According to PLASU, in a statement issued on Thursday by its Chairman, Dr. Monday Hassan Zitta, and Secretary, Lomka Iliya Kopdiya, it is now a serious contentious matter that could lead to industrial action.

The statement explained that earned academic allowances are typically computed and paid at the end of an academic session, based on the ratio of staff to students, after a period of teaching, assessment, and project supervision.

“In 2021, following a strike action, the past Plateau State Government significantly increased the monthly subvention to the university to cater for payments of EAA.

“Sadly, the university administration chose to use the increased subvention for other purposes.

“To resolve the problem of delays and agitations, the union, conscious of the disadvantage of a proposal, magnanimously agreed that the payments of EAA should be mainstreamed into monthly salaries instead of the sessional computation,” PLASU added.

The statement further stressed that what the union stands for has been done in other state universities with conditions acceptable to both the administration and the union.

The statement chastised the PLASU, saying that rather than commending and appreciating the gesture, the university authorities decided to ignore the union’s correspondence on the matter and hastily imposed a token amount that is the least compared to other state universities with mainstreamed EAA in their monthly salaries.

The union demands that the authorities either revert to the sessional computation method or consider and pay the justifiable and reasonable amount recommended by the union as stated in the Professor Bulus Gyang Committee’s report.

They want the institution to pay the outstanding 50 per cent of the 2023/2024 EAA and address all outstanding issues in the previously signed agreement between the union and the Plateau State Government.