ASCETA Academic staff protests: Govt is in control, set up c’tte – Provost

Members of Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, in the Abia state College of Education Technical Arochukwu, ASCETA penultimate Friday took to the street to protest seven months’ unpaid salary arrears and non-implementation of the consolidated Polytechnics and Colleges of Education Academics Staff Salary Structure in the institution.

However, the Provost of the college, Dr. Philip Nto says, the state government is in control.

Reacting over the issue, Dr. Nto disclosed that the state government had through the college council “set up a committee to look at the whole thing”, stating that the committee is working hard towards resolving the issue.

According to him, the committee is being chaired by the college Council Chairman, Chief Okey Kanu, while the college Registrar is the Secretary.

“The committee was set up to show the importance of the matter which also includes staff welfare”, the Provost said.

The Academic Union had lamented that after 24 years of the establishment of the College, successive governments in the state had turned deaf ears to their complains, despite waiting patiently for government to come to their rescue.

The chairman of the Union in the College, Dr. Kanu Izuchukwu who addressed Journalists during the protest lamented that ASCETA is the only College of Education in Nigeria, where minimum wage is less than N 10, 000. He also added that a Ph.D holder in the College earns a paltry salary of N40, 000 per month.

He attributed the poor salary paid to staff of the College to meager sum of N24 million naira subventions given to the College by the state government.

He explained that since 2011, all other Colleges of Education and Polytechnics in Nigeria had commenced the actual implementation of the Consolidated Polytechnics and Colleges of Education Academic Salary Structure (CONPCASS), but ASCETA was the only College that was found unworthy to enjoy the salary structure.

According to him, “Even Abia state Polytechnic got the CONPCASS and their subvention was raised to Ninety million naira, but we remained with the old and outdated Consolidated Tertiary Institution Salary Structure (CONTISS) of 2007.

“Right now the federal Government has worked out modalities for a new minimum wage. This means that Colleges of Education and polytechnics shall soon be expecting a salary structure different from CONPCASS, while we will still be receiving CONTISS 2007, what a great injustice.

“It is primarily and by inference these issues of gross underpayment that chased us out of the wood. The effect of this meager salary is telling on our staff. They are impoverished, economically deprived and socially degraded.

“We have been demanding and still demanding that our subvention be increased to N50 million Naira, to enable our College management pay us the CONPCASS salary structure”.

Izuchukwu Lamented that the poor condition of service experienced in the Institution have subjected its staff to extreme wretchedness and a life of penury, destitution and despair; engrossed in fear and uncertainty of their tomorrow.

“we are now depending, as though we are beggars on the benevolence of other members of the society to survive, some of us had suffered and died under the weight of this deprivation”, he said.

He urged the state to stop complaining about the inability of its predecessor from solving their problems and attend to their demands, adding that there is no need for a sitting government to borrow a leave from the bad things its predecessor did in office.