The Nation Newspaper

Tag: GOVT

  • Govt’s attitude to quality education

    Govt’s attitude to quality education

    As I penned this piece, tear rolled down my cheek. Why? I am feeling sorry for the future of Nigeria with the way our government manages education and for education itself.

    For education, I shed tears because it has never been so bad like it is now – incessant strike action by Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), National Union of Teachers and bodies of non-teaching staff.

    For more than four months, the ASUU has paralysed academic activities in most campuses because of its demand from the government to improve the condition of learning schools and promote research.

    Ordinarily, one will expect that having an academic as president would make the country witness needed reform in education sector, but we are all dazed to see that it was the president himself rendering the efforts of his former colleagues in ivory tower to engender quality education useless.

    The basic function of education is to train young ones and equip them with necessary knowledge to bring about changes in the society. But the people the country sees as its future do not have access to quality and progressive education; no functional laboratory; no adequate rooms in school halls; no grant for research and lectures rooms are nothing to write home about.

    The Federal Government has said it did not have adequate funds to meet ASUU’s demands. This is because the strike has not stopped our leaders’ wards from being in school. Their children do not attend schools with us in Nigeria and where they do, they are sent to private universities.

    As a result of the poor funding of education, Nigeria cannot boast of meaningful invention to aid the cause of humanity. Our peers across the globe with functional education system are producing aircraft, ships, vehicles and machineries, yet we are proud to take money to buys those things. The so-called Asian tigers – Malaysia, Singspore, China, India etc. achieve the feat because of their massive investment in education.

    The Transformation Agenda of the present administration is nothing if it is not anchored on sound education. The dream to build a progressive would be a mirage if we fail to invest in education.

    Students in most universities stay by windows to take lectures, with majority of schools lack facilities to accommodate 50 per cent of students.

    Over 1.6 million candidates wrote the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) this year and according to the immediate past Minister of Education, Prof Ruqqayatu Rufa’i, institutions across the country could only admit 500,000 candidates, leaving over 1 million candidates unengaged. What would the unlucky candidates do? Of course, some of them would take to crimes such as armed robbery, kidnapping and prostitution.

    In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing that will help the president’s Transformation Agenda as the demands of the ASUU. Yet some unpatriotic elements want us not to identify with ASUU, insinuating that the whole thing had been politicised.

    Worrisome is the fact that the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) president who is supposed to be informed and fight good cause turned his back against our lecturers. Yinka Gbadebo is not a student as confirmed by the NANS senate leadership, thus it is natural that he will not fight for the interest of the students.

    Since President Goodluck Jonathan complained of paucity of funds, I suggest, on behalf of all students who mean well for education and Nigeria, that the office of the First Lady be scraped; the budget of the senate and overheads of the ministers be cut down to fund universities.

    If President Jonathan is not ready to fund education ade1quately and allow us to return to classroom, he should resign and give people with better idea to lead.

     

    •Kamaludeen, 200-Level Geography, NSUK

     

  • Govt tasked on cancer campaign

    THE Federal Government has been urged to renew its commitment to fighting cervical cancer, to reduce the number of casualties. The charge was given last week during the lecture by Prof Etedafe Gharoro, a consultant Gynaecologist and Deputy Provost of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) Medical School.

    The event with the theme: ‘’The burden of cancer of the cervix’’, was held at the Oba Akenzua Hall of the UNIBEN Teaching Hospital (UBTH). It was attended by the Provost of College of Medical Sciences, Prof Vincent Iyawe ; Head of Department of Child Health, Dr W.E. Sadoh, Chief Physiotherapist, UBTH, Dr Kayode Oke, Medical director (CMD), UBTH, Prof Michael Ibadin and members  of the Edo State branch of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).

    In his welcome remark, Dr Oke said that the hospital decided to organise the lecture create awareness on the scourge of cervical cancer which is said to be the second most common cancer in women. He added that proper enlightenment of the public would help in curtailing its spread.

    Prof Etedafe said cervical carcinoma, commonly called cervical cancer, is an abnormal growth in the cells around the cervix with Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) being the carrier. He said that the disease can be also be contracted through sex, smoking and poor nutrition.

    He decried the poor state of the Nigeria National Cancer Registry (NNCR) which was created to reduce incidence of the disease, provide vaccination and screening of patients.

    Prof Isah Ambrose appealed to government and corporate bodies to help to subsidise the cost of the vaccine, saying that it would assist more women to undergo vaccination. Another attendee, Mrs Margret Amayo called on participants to spread the message through social media, adding that it would curtail the prevalence of the disease.

    Afiesume Emmanuel, 100-Level Medicine, commended the hospital management for organising the lecture.

     

  • Govt, private sector urged on employment

    The Senior Special Assistant to Presidency on Millennium Development Goals, Dr Precious Gbeneol, has appealed to the government and the private sector to fashion ways of creating employment to alleviate poverty.

    The Presidential aide, who spoke at the just-concluded World Poverty Day, noted that putting more people to work remains the most sustainable way to reduce poverty.

    He acknowledged the efforts of the Federal Government to create jobs through different initiatives, such as the Conditional Cash transfer (CCT), You- Win and other efforts aimed at boosting the productive capacity in the economy, especially urged support for the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    “Though a lot has been achieved in the Information and Communications sector in the past two years, I will appeal to our youths to embrace agriculture as a means of viable employment by taking advantage of the various policies of the government,” said Gbeneol.

    She said Nigeria has made progress in eradicating poverty since it, alongside other developed countries, adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000.

    Specifically, she noted that Nigeria has partly achieved goal one of the MDGs, which deals with eradication of extreme poverty and hunger ahead of target date of 2015, by reducing the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 50 per cent.

  • ILO flays Fed Govt over minimum wage

    The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Committee of Expert on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations (CEACR) has criticised the Federal Government over what it called the poor implementation of the national minimum wage signed into law in 2011.

    The committee, which is the ILO supervisory body that addresses observations and directs request to member-states observed that the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act, 2011 has revised the amount of fines for non-compliance with minimum wage, thereby allowing employers to pay whatever they desire to workers.

    The Committee, in a statement, however, noted that the implementation of the new minimum wage was facing significant difficulties in some states and public administrations.

    This, the Committee said, was due to the fact that there is no legislative provision for sanction to employers who violate the law.

    The ILO charged the Federal Government to provide information on the measures taken or envisaged to ensure effective compliance with the minimum wage law by employers it applies, both in the private and public sectors.

    The committee further directed the government to provide information on the application of the Minimum Wage Fixing-Machinery Convention, which Nigeria ratified, and, in particular, if such information was available, the number of workers remunerated at the minimum wage rate, statistical data showing the evolution of the minimum wage as compared to the average or median wage or the inflation rate.

    It also directed the labour ministry to provide labour inspection results showing the number of infringements of the wage law observed and the measures taken to bring them to an end.

    Corroborating the ILO’s view, General Secretary, Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), Mr Alade Lawal, confirmed that the implementation of the minimum wage for civil servants was done in bad faith, noting that workers have not benefited from the adjustment in the new wage.

    He said the argument by government that minimum wage is only for workers in the lower cadre does not hold water stating that services of workers in grade levels 1 and 2 (cleaners) had already being outsourced to private firms. He challenged government to tell Nigerians those that are benefiting from the minimum wage.

    “To us, it is an implementation done in bad faith. This is because the minimum salary in the civil service before the implementation of the minimum wage is N17, 034. What the Federal Government did was to adjust the amount to N18,000. At the end, the 0.01 per cent increment was used to adjust up to grade level 17. Their argument is that they do not want to create distortion in the system. Government has made a mess of the whole issue. We do not see this as implementation of minimum wage because the adjustment has to be scientific,” he said.

    The Belgore Committee set up by the Federal Government to negotiate a new national minimum wage for workers had, in a bid to ensure compliance by stakeholders, recommended penalties for any employer who failed to comply with the new National Minimum Wage Act when passed by the National Assembly.

  • ASUU: A most irresponsible Fed Govt argument

    ASUU: A most irresponsible Fed Govt argument

    UNTIL a few days ago, the federal government had done fairly well sustaining its unthinking indifference to the plight of tertiary education in the country and the ongoing Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike. It believed it had reached the end of its tethers in the negotiation with ASUU; it felt it had honourably discharged its obligations to tertiary education and could do no more; and it believed if anybody should be pressured, it ought to be the teachers whom it concluded had become heartless in their disregard of the pains the strike was causing everyone. In fact, the public, feckless and gullible as always, had started to feel dismayed that the wronged parties in the struggle to rebuild tertiary education were the government, which it believed had conceded so much by offering N140bn to the teachers, and the grounded students who are predictably torn between embracing the strike in their honest pursuit of quality education and enduring the frustrations of idling at home.

    However, speaking at a press conference last Tuesday, the Information minister, Labaran Maku, suggested that those who negotiated the 2009 FG/ASUU agreement did not take into cognisance its cost implication before signing it. This is probably the concealed heresy some ministers and presidential aides had refused to voice out until Mr Maku daringly shouted it from the rooftops. The agreement, totalling some N1.5trn, has been peremptorily described by the co-ordinating minister of the economy as totally unrealistic; and even the Senate President, David Mark, has described those who negotiated and signed it as ignorant. Some members of the team that negotiated the agreement are still alive; I expect they will answer for themselves. At any rate, ASUU will not allow Messrs Mark and Maku to have the last word on an issue that is promising to become very controversial as the strike drags on.

    If the acerbic Senator Mark, who has implausibly been mandated by the Senate to wade into the strike but appears to have made up his mind on what opinion to hold, was scurrilous and unsparing, Mr Maku was even more gratuitous. If, as he said, the federal government delegation didn’t work out the cost implication of the agreement, a fact hard to defend, who was Mr Maku, seeing that he is not a member of ASUU, to suggest that ASUU was also ignorant of the implications?

    More importantly, after the federal government’s negotiating team reported back to the government the details of the agreement, why did the government not scrutinise the agreement before approving it, on the basis of which the 2009 strike was called off? The slothfulness now referred to in egregious terms by Messrs Mark and Maku is a distressing and worrisome indication of the incompetence that suffuses the Nigerian corridors of power, and explains why the country is comprehensively misgoverned. How many more agreements, policies and decisions have been taken with heedless indulgence and jauntiness by an inept federal government? And why is the government not discomfited by how easily and imperturbably it breaks and dishonours agreements?

    Rather than be beguiled by the government’s argument and the misapplication of logic by Messrs Mark and Maku, the public should focus on the carefree refusal of the government to fulfil key parts of the agreement since 2009, not on the scarifying N1.5trn said to have been agreed between the government and ASUU to fund education over five years. Crucially, too, Nigerians should ask the Goodluck Jonathan government what great vision he has for education, a vision capable of motivating him into calling for both a huge national sacrifice and revolutionary efforts to remedy years of decline and decay over which he has self-righteously and repeatedly claimed exoneration.

     

  • Privatisation: Govt spends N609.4b on labour

    Privatisation: Govt spends N609.4b on labour

    The Federal Government has spent about N609.398billion between 2000 and 2013 in settlement of labour liabilities in privatised public enterprises, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Benjamin Dikki, has revealed.

    BPE’s Director, Public Communication, Chigbo Anichebe, in a statement yesterday, said Dikki made this known after a meeting with the Energy Working Group of the Nigeria-Germany Bi-National Commission, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

    He explained that the sector break down showed that a chunk of the money was spent on the settlement of labour liabilities in the power sector, which has gulped over N384.062 billion, representing 63 per cent of the entire N609 billion payout.

    He pointed out that the power sector was closely followed by the telecommunications sector, with the settlement of labour issues in NITEL/M-tel, taking N126, 716,111,589.

    He said a further N67, 780,039,618.52, was expended in the settlement of labour liabilities in the transport and aviation sector, with bulk of it spent on the settlement of liabilities of the workers of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA).

    Dikki said the steel sector consumed N10, 733,347,712.53, while about N8, 950,510,491, went into the settlement of labor issues in privatised enterprises in the agro-allied sector.

    He listed other sectors and their corresponding liabilities to include, Insurance N4,700,000,000; Sugar companies, N3,527,095,184,; Paper mills N417,447,000; Hospitality N1,262,708,633; Cement companies, N636,324,705, Media enterprises, N505,874,001.23, and Petrochemicals, N106,615,529.87

    On Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) successor companies, the BPE boss said government has shown tremendous goodwill and commitment to resolving all the labour issues in the power transaction, adding that it was the only singular transaction that all the proceeds realised from the sale of power assets were committed to settling labour liabilities.

    “Payment of all the workers entitlements is on-going, and money has been set aside to pay all those that have been duly cleared,” he added.

  • Govt urged to patronise local steel firms

    Govt urged to patronise local steel firms

    Executive Director of Phoenix Steel Mills Limited, Mr Ajit Amtey, has called on Federal and state governments to patronise local steel manufacturing firms to keep them afloat.

    He spoke when a verification team from the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) visited his company’s premises in Lagos yesterday.

    Amtey said such patronage had become necessary because of the challenges facing steel companies in the country. For now, he said, there was a proliferation in steel companies, advising the government against registering more.

    He bemoaned the state of infrastructure in the country, describing it as a big challenge. Irregular power supply and bad roads, he said, accounted for high operational costs and falling revenue for most steel firms.

    According to him, many of the remaining firms are operating on about 14 per cent of installed capacity, which he noted, does not augur well for a sector that has huge potentials.

    Amtey said most operators were contending with the public misconception that local firms don’t manufacture quality iron rods, hence the preference for imported steel.

    “Any country’s progress is measured by its per capita consumption of steel and there is need for the government to address the challenges facing the steel industry,” he said.

    Officials of African Foundries Steel Mills Limited, who spoke at the event, said there was need for the government’s intervention in the sector.

    They advised the government to, among others, discourage import of steel products, improve infrastructure and security, and see to the improvement of communication signals in the country.

  • Fed Govt decries vandalism of MDGs projects

    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Dr Precious Gbeneol, yesterday decried the vandalisation of MDG projects in some communities.

    Dr. Gbeneol, who was represented by Director of Finance, David Ibikunle, urged the communities to own, protect, use and maintain MDGs projects across the country.

    The presidential aide spoke at a sensitisation workshop organised for civil society organisations (CSOs) and Federal Information Officers (FIOs) from 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    She expressed concerns at the rate completed MDG projects were neglected by their host communities.

    Gbeneol said: “In some quarters, MDG projects are been vandalised, neglected, abandoned or seen as foreign bodies in the communities where they are domiciled.

    “No one has greater stakes in the programmes and projects being executed by the MDGs Office than the benefitting communities. They need to be mobilised and educated on how to take ownership and responsibility for the sustainability of such projects.”

    The presidential aide urged the CSOs and FIOs to serve as advocates of the implementation of MDG projects in their various communities.

    She said: “I count on the information officers here present to pass on the message in such a way that it would cascade down to the grassroots. Following this training, we expect to see increased community project maintenance. Committees should work out the modalities to sustain MDGs projects. This will be a welcome development.

    “As the deadline for the MDGs draws near, we are calling on all stakeholders to redouble their efforts to ensure that Nigeria consolidates on its achievements and attain new milestones before the 2015 deadline.”

     

  • Fed Govt to review Cultural Policy

    The Federal Government is set to review the  nation’s cultural policy in order to meet the various challenges in the sector.

    The Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation Chief Edem Duke stated this when the Executive Secretary of the National Institute for Cultural Orientation, NICO, Dr Barclays Ayakoroma, presented the report of a workshop on Repositioning the cultural sector to him in Abuja.

    Duke, who emphasised the role of the sector in the transformation agenda of the administration, said a lot would be achieved if this is done.

    He said the Ministry would continue to give priority to capacity building to ensure professionalism among key players in the cultural sector.

    Presenting the report, the Executive Secretary of NICO, Ayakoroma reiterated the commitment of the institute towards human resource development of stakeholders in the sector. The three-day workshop on Repositioning cultural workers for improved productivity, was organised for 78 staff of the Federal Ministry of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation and its parastatals.

    The workshop, which was the first the institute packaged for the ministry, was aimed at enhancing the professional skills and competence of the culture workers.

     

  • N130b: ASUU faults govt’s claim

    The Ibadan Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday described the claim by the Federal Government that it has released N130 billion to the universities as a lie.

    It said government was only interested in awarding contracts to build a four-bedroom flat at the rate of N8.5 million as against the range of N800,000 and N1.2 million.

    This was part of a communiqué reached at the end of a meeting of the Ibadan Zone of ASUU held at the University of Ibadan.

    The meeting was headed by the Zonal Coordinator, Dr. Ademola Nasir.

    The ASUU Ibadan Zone comprises the University of Ibadan (UI), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (OAU), Lagos State University (LASU), Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), University of Lagos (UNILAG), Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) and Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED).

    It decried the usual deceit by the Federal Government, saying “Nigerians should know that no kobo has been released.”

    ASUU alleged that it has refused to allow the government agents to use the struggle to enrich some people.

    It said although the union rejected it as not part of its agreement with the Federal Government, it (government) was yet to release any part of the amount.