We give LASU N450m monthly, says Lagos State in reaction to workers’ protest

Lagos State government has said that it expects tertiary institutions owned by the state to be responsible in the application of government subventions and staffing.

Reacting to the protest by the Non Academic Staff Union (NASU) and the Senior Staff  Academic Union of Universities (SSANU) at the Lagos State University (LASU) on Monday, Special Adviser  to the Governor on Education,  Tokunbo Wahab, in a statement, said the government expects managements of tertiary institutions in the state to pay up their staff salaries to avoid what could be described as sabotage of government’s efforts at ensuring school resumption this week.

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The unions had prevented the university’s vice chancellor, Prof Olanrewaju Fagboun, students and other people  from gaining access to the university this morning, accusing the state government of reneging in its promise to pay the  workers the reviewed minimum wage.  The workers noted that the state had effected the change in salaries of other categories of workers in the state.

The  statement  titled, ‘Re: Protesting LASU Workers, Response from the Office of the Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, Lagos State’, read,  “Lagos State University, like other “subvented” MDAs, collects the sum of N450,000,000.00 (Four hundred and fifty million naira) every month from the Lagos State Government as Subvention.

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“The Government expects the institutions to also be responsible in the application of the funds and the staffing of the institutions. We must also have at the back of our mind that they have IGR which they generate and not accountable to government on how same is expended.

“Aside the Subvention, the government is also responsible for the infrastructural developments (which include the recently approved 8,000 plus bed hostel in this same LASU) of the institutions and other ancillary things including payment for accreditation exercise for which the last one cost the government close to N500m.

“We expect that the management of these institutions pay up their staff salaries to avoid situations that looks more like deliberate sabotaging of the efforts of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu led administration as we prepare for schools resumption this week.”