Tag: LAUTECH

Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi yesterday said the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, will get a N500million lifeline.
The governor said the two owner-states, Oyo and Osun, will contribute N250million each to defray the salary arrears of the striking academic and non-academic members.
He suspended the State Executive Council meeting to calm the frayed nerves of students, who marched on the Governor’s Office, Ibadan.
The governor said he suspended the meeting to address them because of his concern for their plight and to enable them hear directly from him about efforts to reopen the school.
Ajimobi said he was working with his Osun State counterpart, Rauf Aregbesola, for both states to mobilise the lifeline.
Academic and non-academic workers had been on strike since June 9, 2016, in protest against delay in settling their salary arrears, a development the governor blamed on the dwindling fortunes of the two owner states.
Ajimobi restated his earlier assurances that normalcy would return to the school by month end.
The governor said: “I had to suspend the State Executive Council meeting to meet with you when reports got to me that students were at the gate eager to hear from me.
“The crux of the matter is that government lacks fund. I’m sure all of you are aware of the mounting financial difficulties confronting the country, in which we have a fair share. But nevertheless, we (Oyo and Osun states) have reached a solid agreement on how to contribute funds to start with.
“We are contributing an initial N250million each as allocation to LAUTECH to achieve the set goal of getting the university reopened. This is in continuation of our continuous search for every opportunity to improve education standards in Oyo State.
“We have given instructions that the school must be reopened before the end of this month. But you must know that part of education is what they call civic responsibility and tomorrow leadership is about being good observers of rule of law today.”

The governor, who urged the students to eschew violence and disobedience, said dialogue remained the most potent tool to resolve any disagreement.
A former President of the Student Union Government of LAUTECH, Bakare Olatunde, who spoke on behalf of the protesters, said: “We are sorry for our conduct sir. But, we just want to plead that your promise be fulfilled.
“We have heard times without number of government’s unfulfilled promise to reopen the school. We want you to please do your part to help in speeding up the process.”

About seventy medical and dental consultants working at the Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso, have indicated their readiness to resign their appointment, if the Oyo state Government fails to urgently address both the lingering status and salary problems of the tertiary health institution.
The N24billion teaching hospital established by the previous administration of Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala, became operational in 2011, when staff of the teaching hospital in Osogbo, Osun State, who are of Oyo state origin, were directed to relocate as a a result of Oyo State Government circular.
However, five years after take-off of the teaching hospital, some key equipment contracted are yet to be fully supplied. While many equipments that were procured and supplied in 2011 before the take off of the hospital are yet to be installed.
This, findings revealed, is due to non-completion of ancillary structures needed for their installations or functions.
Some of these equipments include, the Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MRI], Dental complex, patients’ elevator systems and the integrated Information Technology systems, among others.
In a recent media briefing in Ogbomoso , Chairman, Medical and Dental Consultants Association of the teaching hospital, Dr. Adewale Adeyemi who gave the warning, also cautioned the government to stop forthwith, the payment of fifty percent to the staff, and pay without any further delay, arrears of fifty percent salaries of January to April, as well as one hundred percent of May to November this year.
“The dedication and determination of all staff within less than five years of existence, had resulted in ninety percent accreditations for Postgraduate Medical Training, and had produced Specialist Medical Consultants from among residents trained in the hospital. The performance of our resident doctors at various postgraduate examinations has been highly commendable, and sometimes much better than some of the more established training centres in the country,” he said.
This, according to him, was in addition to accreditation of medicine undergraduate programme withdrawn in 2010, increase in MBSS quota from fifty to seventy-five students, mainly because of additional facilities in the health institution.
In view of the development, a coalition of interest groups known as TOWARDS HEALTHY CITIZENRY, today in Ogbomoso, passionately appeal to Governor Abiola Ajimobi, to personally intervene in the teaching hospital crises, for the sake of the downtrodden in dire need of health care delivery.
According to its spokesman, Dauda Onilewura, “we are humbly begging our listening governor to consider the agonies and trauma that in and out patients would be subjected to if all medical and dental consultants are allowed to quit en masse. This, indeed, would be very disastrous not only for the hospital, Ogbomoso residents, but the entire state as a whole”.
On salary situation, Dr. Adeyemi regretted that arrears of salaries are being owed all categories of workers since January 2016.
“Oyo State Government has paid only fifty percent of January to April 2016 salaries, and as at today, the eleven month, no other salary has been paid. In fact, the first salary this year , which is fifty percent of January salary, was received in August 2016.
Government owes the staff fifty percent balance of January to April, and a hundred percent of May to November 2016. For clarity of purpose, the last fifty percent salary which was intended to be April 2016 salary was paid in October 2016.”
The medical and dental consultants association chairman lamented that while every category of workers in other health institutions in the state were paid hundred percent of their salaries for January to April this year, only LAUTECH Teaching Hospital was singled out for fifty percent of salary payment.
LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Ogbomoso, he noted, has erroneously been categorized by government as a tertiary educational institution, and charged with the responsibility to generate the fifty percent of its monthly wage bill.
“The teaching hospital, for clarity and emphasis, does not own any students, but rather facilitates trainings of students of College of Health Sciences of the university, and does not charge or receive any fee from either the students or university for these services”.
He added, “health-care services are social services and this cannot be commercialized, and no teaching hospital can change commensurate fees for its service without pricing itself out of affordability of the populace. There is no federal or state teaching hospital that generates up to ten percent of their monthly wage bill. Teaching hospitals are not tertiary educational institutions. A teaching hospital serves as clinical laboratory to University”.
“Though government officials agreed in principle that the teaching hospital is not a tertiary educational institution, bt insisted that government would not pay a hundred percent salary to staff of the tertiary institution. This was corroborated by the state Commissioner for Health, who told the management, during his visit to the teaching hospital, to forget balance payment of its staff half salaries, as government had made available what it could afford”.
On the key equipments yet to be supplied by the contractors, a Consultant Paediatric, Dr. Michael Olaniyan Onigbinde, one of the pioneer staff of the teaching hospital, disclosed that most of the contracts were awarded before resumption of the consultants.
“The amount of money collected by the contractors, Biostadt Medical Equipment Supplier, is not commensurate with the equipments supplied to the teaching hospital. Though, about fifty-five percent of equipments had so far been supplied, the remaining forty-five percent equipments yet to be supplied by contractors are very vital and critical to optimal service delivery of the teaching hospital.”
Onigbinde who earlier conducted journalists on facility tour of the teaching hospital, informed that both the management and consultant were mounting pressures on both the government and state house of assembly towards taking stern decisions on the contractors for defaults.
Meanwhile, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Azeez Adeduntan, during his visit to the hospital’s management, said the fifty percent salary payment was irreversible and immutable. Impeccable source informed that in view of the global recession in which Nigeria is not an exception, the lean resources within government disposal would be rationed.