THE Federal
Government on Tuesday said it did not have the resources to meet
the N92bn financial demand by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, at
the opening of a two-day meeting of Commissioners of Finance and
Accountants-General of states, said the N92bn being demanded by the university
lecturers was not within the reach of the Federal Government.
She said, “At present, ASUU wants the Federal
Government to pay N92bn in extra allowances, when the resources are not there,
and when we are working to integrate past increases in pensions. We need to
make choices in this country as we are getting to the stage where recurrent
expenditures take the bulk of our resources and people get paid but can do no
work.
“Since I assumed office, the share of recurrent
expenditure in our total budgets had increased astronomically. In fact,
recurrent expenditure accounted for about 77.2 per cent of the federal budget
and we are now working to re-balance this ratio.”
The minister added, “The country is still
suffering from the effect of the 2010 increase in salary. Do we want to get to
a stage in this country that all the money we earn is used to pay salaries and
allowances?”
The theme of the meeting is ‘Restructuring
Nigeria’s Finances.’
She said, “If the demands of the university
lecturers are met and we continue to pay them salaries and allowances, we will
not be able to provide infrastructure in the universities.”
The minister also lamented that Nigeria’s over-dependence
on oil had resulted in deterioration of the nation’s non-oil tax.
She said that non-oil taxes accounted for 74 per
cent of Nigeria’s Government revenues in 1970 but by 2012, it had declined to
only 30 per cent.
She said many states and local governments were
also dependent on monthly revenue allocation from the central government. “On
the average only 11 percent of sub-national revenue was obtained from
internally-generated sources,” she added.
Meanwhile, the negotiation between the Federal Government
and striking members of the ASUU ended in a deadlock as both parties
rescheduled the meeting to Monday next week.
The Chief Mediator on behalf of Federal
Government and Governor of Benue State, Dr. Gabriel Suswam, who spoke with
journalists on Tuesday after a marathon meeting, said “tremendous progress” has
been made in the negotiations, particularly on the NEEDs Assessment and Earned
Allowance issues raised by ASUU.
Suswam, who also serves as chairman of the
Universities Needs Assessment Committee, expressed optimism that the issues
would soon be resolved going by the progress made so far.
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