Federal Varsity Spends N10 million on Diesel Monthly

…Signs Agreement with Benin Disco

The Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE), Ekiti State, Prof. Kayode Soremekun, has lamented that the university is 24 hours hooked to generating set for effective power supply in the university, which cost a sum of N10 million monthly

Soremekun who disclosed that as a way out, has signed agreement with  Benin Electricity Distribution Company to link  the school  with the grid and reduce dependence on costly alternative power source, however promised not to sack the leaders of the Senior Staff Union of Universities(SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union(NASU) , who led a protest against him on Monday.

He explained that contrary to the allegation that the university’s development has decelerated under him, but he has rather taken bold steps to expand the internally generated revenue of the university as well as shoring up the number of courses from 30 to 49 with the recent accreditation of 19 more courses by the National Universities Commission(NUC).

Members of the two unions had on Monday shut down the university in protest over unpaid November and December salaries and non-payment of hazard allowance, while also accusing the management of  withdrawing N2 million each to celebrate the Christmas,  among other grievous
allegations bordering on illegal employment and stagnant  promotion .

The Vice Chancellor  who urged the workers and the unionists to show undrstanding and be supportive of his efforts at making the university rank among the best federal universities in the country, however clarified that the November salary of the university workers has been paid before the new year’s festivity , while that of December was paid yesterday(Tuesday) after getting the money from the federal government on Monday .

Addressing journalists  in Ado Ekiti on the bedlam in the university on Tuesday, Soremekunm said his major preoccupation is how to develop the university and not to  witch-hunt anybody on account of legitimate agitations.

Soremekun denied engaging in arbitrary award of contracts and pilfering of the institution’s money for selfish motives, saying the university has a strong Public Procurement Act and Financial and
General Purposes Committee to scrutinize all dealings being undertaken by the management.

“As much as we are not going to victimize anybody, we will not also tolerate any act of lawlessness by unions, because we learnt many of the academic staff who didn’t join the protest were beaten. This was not good for academic environment and we will not allow that.

The Vice Chancellor disclosed further that : “The federal government has set up Wale Babalakin-led committee to dialogue with university workers and I expect them to await the outcome of the committee.

“The FG dialogue with university workers in 2009 and they appealed to universities with strong IGR to pay the hazard allowance. But what IGR can a university like FUOYE, which established five years ago makes?

He however urged the workers to be patient and show understanding, saying “We have paid the outstanding salaries and what we expect is for them to resume work. The idea that all allowances must be paid before resumption is not realizable now. But I  want to appeal to them to see reason to allow for speedy settlement of  this crisis”, he added.