- VC Says Varsity’s Monthly Electricity Bill N80m
MEMBERS of the University of Jos chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Tuesday held a peaceful protest over the non-implementation of agreement the union reached with the federal government.
Prof. Jurbe Molwus, chairperson of the chapter, led the protest to the office of the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Tanko Ishaya.
Presenting the union’s demands to the vice chancellor, Molwus, represented by his deputy, Prof. Kiri Jaryum, said that the protest was in line with the directive of its National Executive Council (NEC).
“This peaceful protest is in line the 14-day ultimatum issued by our NEC, calling on the federal government to honour the agreement reached with it a long time ago.
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“We are particularly calling on the federal government to pay the balance of the earned academic allowance, unpaid and withheld salary arrears of our members, which were all captured in the 2023 budget.
“Government should also check the proliferation of universities in the country and remove universities from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), among others.
“As we speak, university lecturers have been on the same salary structure for 15 years and that’s very bad for the university system,” he said.
Molwus called on the vice chancellor to transmit the demands to the federal government for immediate action.
Responding, the vice chancellor commended members of the union for conducting themselves peacefully during the protest.
He particularly thanked them for not disrupting the ongoing examination and other academic activities in the university.
Tanko, who described the demands by the union as genuine, promised to transmit them to the government.
NAN reports that a cross section of students of the university, led by the President of the Student Union Government, Sambo Peter, joined the lecturers for the protest.
Meanwhile, the vice chancellor revealed during the protest that the monthly electricity bill for the University of Jos has risen from between N20 and N30 million to N80 million following the recent hike in electricity tariff, particularly for consumers on Band A.
Prof. Ishaya, who described the monthly allocation for the university as grossly inadequate, said that the management of the Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JEDC) Plc had threatened to disconnect the university from power source.
“We budgeted between N20 to N30 million monthly for electricity bill, but with the new tariff, JEDC gave us a bill of N80 million for the month of April.
“Unfortunately, our monthly overhead is just N14 million and we recently increased students charges to cover these essential services.
“But we can’t cope with this development and JEDC is already threatening to disconnect the university from power source,” he said. (NAN)
